Alex de Minaur’s decision to relinquish his Acapulco title to chase the $10 million on offer in Qatar and Dubai has backfired spectacularly after the Aussie suffered a shock first-up loss to Marin Cilic on Tuesday night. In his first match in Dubai, de Minaur fell 2-6 6-3 3-6 to former World No.3 Cilic, now ranked 187.

De Minaur lost the first three games of the match en route to dropping the first set to the 2014 US Open champion. He managed to fight back and win the second set, but eventually slumped to a crushing loss.

It marks the first time since June last year that de Minaur has failed to make at least the quarter-finals of a tournament he was playing in. During that time he’d reached the last eight at Wimbledon, the US Open, Antwerp, Vienna, Paris Masters, Australian Open, Rotterdam and Doha.

Last week he reached the quarters at the Qatar Open (Doha) before losing to eventual champion Andrey Rublev. Tuesday night’s loss to Cilic came after de Minaur made the curious decision to change his schedule in 2025 despite having success with his plans the last two years.

He was the back-to-back champion at the Mexican Open in Acapulco – winning the title in 2023 and 2024. But this year he relinquished the title and opted to play in Dubai instead, which runs at the same time as Acapulco.

The Aussie was believed to be chasing the extra rankings points on offer with back-to-back events in Qatar and Dubai, which also offer a combined AU$10 million to the winner of each ($4.7m in Qatar and $5.4m in Dubai). But his shock loss in Dubai has now put him in danger of dropping out of the world’s top 10.

He’s fallen to No.9 in the immediate aftermath of his loss to Cilic, and Tommy Paul can send him to 10th with one more win in Acapulco. Just two weeks ago de Minaur had surged to an equal career-high ranking of World No.6, overtaking grand slam champions Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev.

Cruel twist around Katie Boulter after Alex de Minaur loss

Also playing into his decision to play Qatar and Dubai was the fact fiancee Katie Boulter was slated to be playing in the Middle East around the same time. Boulter had been scheduled to play the WTA events in Qatar and Dubai this month, which would have allowed her to spend some rare time with de Minaur.

But Boulter withdrew from both of those events, and is reportedly dealing with a foot injury. The British star is believed to be targeting a return at Indian Wells next month. After his loss to Cilic, tennis fans expressed their surprise that de Minaur had relinquished his title in Acapulco and changed his plans.

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De Minaur had revealed last year how beating some high-ranking opponents in Acapulco sparked his career-best run into the world’s top-10. “Obviously if you want to rise up the rankings, it’s pretty tough to do that if you’re not winning these types of matches (against fellow top-10 players),” he said. “But a couple big wins in Acapulco really gave me a lot of confidence and I was able to build on that.”

It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Aussies on Tuesday, with Chris O’Connell advancing in Dubai after World No.16 Grigor Dimitrov retired hurt after losing the first set 6-0 in 24 minutes. Rublev suffered a shock 6-3 4-6 6-7 (5-7) loss to French qualifier Quentin Halys, while top seed Medvedev beat Jan-Lennard Struff 6-4 7-6 (7-4).

with AAP