Alex de Minaur in brutal Rome Open drama amid 'disgraceful' Dominic Thiem French Open development

Alex de Minaur's woes against Stefanos Tsitsipas have continued in Rome, with the Greek tennis star needing less than an hour to sweep aside his Aussie competitor. Despite showing improvements on clay, De Minaur was no match for Tsitsipas, who thrashed the Australian No.1 6-1 6-2 to reach the Italian Open quarter-finals,

Tsitsipas has now won an incredible 11 out of 12 matches against De Minaur and the Aussie has never beaten him on clay. And after Tuesday's performance that doesn't look like changing anytime soon.

De Minaur barely knew what hit him as he found himself 3-0 after just nine minutes and never recovered. Tsitsipas hit 15 winners to de Minaur's four and made fewer unforced errors (four) despite being the aggressor.

The key to the Greek's victory was the quality of his return game. De Minaur only delivered six unreturned serves out of 40, won less than half his points on second service, and lost five of eight break points on serve.

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While de Minaur has made great strides on clay, even beating the 'King of Clay' Rafa Nadal, earlier this clay season, he was still badly outclassed by clay specialist Tsitsipas. Besides reaching the final of the French Open - and going down in a five-set thriller to Novak Djokovic in 2021, Tsitsipas has won three times on the clay of Monte Carlo and also reached the finals of Masters in Rome and Madrid.

With Djokovic out and defending champion Dmitri Medvedev beaten 6-1 6-4 by Tommy Paul on Tuesday, Tsitsipas is now the favourite to win the event. The World No.8 will next play Chile's Nicolas Jarry, who defeated Alexandre Muller 7-5 6-3.

Tennis world furious at 'disgraceful' Dominic Thiem snub

The tennis world has slammed the French Open's decision to not award two-time finalist Dominic Thiem a wildcard into the second grand slam of the year. The French Tennis Federation confirmed in a statement that the majority of the slots would go to home players, with Thiem's omission labelled a 'disgrace' by tennis fans.

Thiem provided some of Roland Garros' most iconic moments, reaching finals in back-to-back years in 2018 and 2019 before going down to Spanish tennis legend Rafa Nadal on both occasions. And in what is his final foray into Paris, after confirming he is retiring at the end of the season, if Thiem is to make the French Open one final time, he will have to go through qualifying which begins on Monday.

Former World No. 11 Alize Cornet- who is set to retire at the end of the tournament - received a wildcard, as did French compatriots Fiona Ferro, Kristina Mladenovic, Richard Gasquet, Harold Mayot and Pierre-Hugues Herbert. While Americans Sachia Vickery and Nicolas Moreno de Alboran were awarded wildcards through an agreement between the federation and the United States Tennis Association. Aussies Ajla Tomljanovic and Adam Walton also secured wildcards.

Thiem joins the likes of Major champions Simona Halep, Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki and Emma Raducanu to miss out on wildcards. And the decision to snub Thiem enraged supporters who took to social media to vent their frustration.

with AAP