As much as any top player, Sinner has been able to expose De Minaur’s lack of first-strike weaponry. The Aussie’s strength is his scrambling and counterpunching, but Sinner serves too well, hits too hard, places the ball too precisely for his defense to be effective. De Minaur hasn’t found a way to hurt, rattle, of disrupt him.

That man was Novak Djokovic, the 10-time Australian Open champion, who got lucky to snare a set. They met only once more last year - the Shanghai final - and Sinner did the legend over again. That is the quality of the player de Minaur was trying to take down.