The first week of Wimbledon is over and Alex De Minaur has extended his record of reaching the fourth round of a major to four consecutive Grand Slams.
De Minaur - seeded ninth at SW19 - made round four at the US Open last year, before matching that effort at his home Australian Open at the beginning of 2024 and then reaching the quarter-finals at the French Open on his last Grand Slam outing.
The 25-year-old made it through to the fourth round at Wimbledon two years ago and will now hope to better that and at least match his best-ever showing at a Grand Slam by progressing to the last eight in London.
He is 19.00 to go all the way and win Wimbledon, while he can be backed at 3.40 to reach the semi-finals.
De Minaur well-rested heading into week two
De Minaur has already enjoyed the best season of his career to date, having impressed at the first two Grand Slams, however, he now has an opportunity to improve his record still further.
The Spain-based Sydney native opened up at SW19 with a tough three-set win over fellow Aussie James Duckworth, needing three tie-breaks to edge through to round two, where he saw off Jaume Munar in straight sets.
He was then handed a major boost as he avoided a potential battle with the elements on an unsettled weekend as his third-round opponent Lucas Pouille withdrew due to injury.
That saw De Minaur definitely through to week two for just the second time and the leading Aussie is relishing the prospect of what lies ahead.
He told reporters: "Getting to second week is a great star and I'm looking forward to hopefully pushing for more.
"Once you're able to kind of get through that first week, I feel like it's a completely new tournament. This is where I've wanted to be."
Next up for De Minaur is a meeting with French rising star Arthur Fills, who won their only previous meeting 7-5 6-2 on the clay of Barcelona earlier this year.
De Minaur is a hot fancy at 1.20 to defeat Fils, who is 4.50, while the Aussie ace is 3.25 to progress in four sets.
Should he move past Fils, Novak Djokovic is a potential quarter-final opponent, although De Minaur is still in arguably the easier half of the draw, with defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, world number one Jannik Sinner and also Daniil Medvedev all in the opposite half.
Popyrin the best of the rest
Among the other 10 Aussies in the men's singles draw, Alexei Popyrin performed best by reaching round three, where he took the opening set off seven-time champion Djokovic before being beaten in four.
Popyrin had ousted Thiago Monteiro and 30th seed Tomas Etcheverry to make the third round, matching his best-ever performance at a Grand Slam.
No other Aussie man made it past the second round, although Adam Walton deserves an honourable mention for coming within a couple of points of reaching round three, being edged out 10-8 in a final-set tie-break by Argentinian Francisco Comesana.
Saville rues missed opportunity
There were just three Australians in the women's singles draw and both Alja Tomljanovic and Olivia Gadecki fell at the first hurdle, leaving Daria Saville to carry the flag.
Saville downed American Payton Stearns 6-4 6-2 to ease through to the second round, where she faced Ukrainian 18th seed Marta Kostyuk.
Saville led by a set and 4-1 and even had a match point at 6-5 in the second set, but was unable to finish the job off and eventually lost out 4-6 7-6 6-4 to Kostyuk.
That meant that Saville missed out on the chance to match her best performance at Wimbledon, having reached round three back in 2018 by beating fellow Aussie Sam Stosur in the second round.
