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Alex de Minaur said it stinks that his terrific grass-court summer should end in anti-climax with a first round Wimbledon defeat to the soaring Sebastian Korda.
Alex de Minaur says he is "devastated", his dreams of a rousing run at Wimbledon having been crushed at the first hurdle by Sebastian Korda, a young rocket man from one of world sport's most successful families.
The Australian No.1 had harboured genuine hopes, as the 15th seed, of enjoying his first deep run at SW19 following his breakthrough triumph at the Eastbourne International last weekend.
Yet 20-year-old Korda overpowered the familiar fighting spirit to win 6-3 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 7-6 (7-5).
The powerful American, son of former Australian Open champ Petr Korda and brother of new world golf No.1 Nelly, again looked an outstanding prospect as he took the racquet out of de Minaur's fighting hands with searing groundstrokes that brought him 41 winners.
There were no excuses from the 22-year-old Sydneysider - but he couldn't help but feel down after such a brilliant recent run which also saw him reach the quarter-finals in Stuttgart and the semis at Queen's Club on grass.
"It doesn't feel great right now," he said. "It's a slam that I wanted to - and believed I could - go deep in but I wasn't able to get through my first one. It is pretty devastating.
"I've had a great grass-court season but the week that I wanted to do well in, I wasn't able to put a couple of things together and it stinks.
"I'd had a hell of a grass-court season but it's a bittersweet ending. Once I have some time, I'm sure I'll be able to look back and be happy with my efforts over the season but this is the week that I wanted to go deep, and it's a shame."
As usual, De Minaur could not be faulted for his battling effort as he saved no less than 15 of 19 break points as Korda maintained inexorable pressure with heavy hitting off both wings.
'Demon' also scrambled in a hard-fought tiebreaker to take the match into a fourth set but his resilience couldn't faze the rising world No.50, who kept his nerve to edge a fourth set breaker and claim the biggest win of his flowering career in three hours 25 minutes.
At the weekend, Korda's elder sister Nelly had won the Women's PGA Championship to take the world No.1 ranking while his oldest sister Jessica is also a top performer on the LPGA Tour.
Korda, who'd watched Nelly win on the television at the weekend with his dad, reckoned that her triumph had given him a real filip going into his match.
"It was super-big inspiration. It's super-cool. All three of us have this super-competitive edge, and we're always inspiring each other.
"Seeing Nelly achieve what she did and how emotional she was is super-inspiring and, hopefully, I can keep playing some good tennis and stay longer here."
It's not out of the question possible that all three, whose mum Regina Rajchrtova competed for Czechoslovakia at tennis at the 1988 Games, could all be shooting for gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
De Minaur too will have to try to gain some solace at the Tokyo Games.
"I'll try to go deep there - that's the plan," he said.
