For there simply hasn't been as overwhelming favourite for any grand slam crown for many a moon as Italy's seemingly unstoppable winning machine, Jannik Sinner.
With Australian Open champ Carlos Alcaraz laid up with a concerning wrist injury, nobody else looks ready to really examine the world No.1 who's on a 29-match winning streak, having won the first five Masters events of the year.
It feels as if only a physical issue or fatigue can derail Sinner after there were moments at his home Italian Open where he admitted to a bit of weariness.
"But I'm lucky to be in this position," he shrugged in Paris on Friday. "It's always better to be in a position where you win and you start to feel tired, than when you feel very good but you lose a couple of rounds."
He's just not losing, period. In fact, he's barely even losing any sets now.
Novak Djokovic was 39 on Friday and, simply on the basis that he's very probably the best player of all-time and downed Sinner in Melbourne, we must still respect him as the best bet to somehow derail a 24-year-old who's beginning to resemble a superior model of the great man himself.
De Minaur had already been knocked out last year, shocked and demoralised after losing to Alexander Bublik in round two, when he watched agog, on telly in a Wimbledon pub, as Alcaraz pipped Sinner in perhaps the finest tennis final ever played.
It inspired him, he said, to want to strive harder to reach their exalted level, a bar that Sinner continues to elevate even without the Spaniard to push him.
'Demon' remains the ultimate trier, and by reaching the Hamburg Open semi-final, showed he's at least peaking at the right time as he seeks to get past the quarter-final at a slam for the first time after seven last-eight appearances.
That has to be his aim; getting to a semi-final on clay would be his career-best achievement, another key breakthrough on a surface which is a bit of a tennis graveyard for most Aussie players.
For it will be a hard slog for the 13 main-draw entries again when the action kicks off on Sunday, especially after a European clay-court campaign in which the top Australian women, in particular, have really found it hard going.
The recent exception, though, has been Daria Kasatkina, who's had real problems with confidence, form issues and injuries since her Australian odyssey began, but has shown signs she could be ready to perhaps emulate last year's achievement of battling to the last-16.
She ended up the last Aussie standing, after Alexei Popyrin also reached the fourth round. He too has shown welcome recent glimpses of a return to form after a dismal start to the year.
The destination of the women's Suzanne Lenglen trophy is much harder to call than the men's Coupe des Mousquetaires, with Iga Swiatek, who meets rising Australian teen hope Emerson Jones first up, perhaps favourite simply on the basis of her four previous wins.
But Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and reigning champ Coco Gauff have all declared they're in shape to triumph and there would be no more popular winner than on-song Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, fresh from another Italian Open triumph.
The best news for the Australian contingent? Thanasi Kokkinakis has made it back for another crack at the big-time after enduring countless injury woes that would have flattened a lesser man.
He's turned 30, laughing that he's years away from the one-time Adelaide boy wonder, but, using his protected ranking after his recent shoulder problems, shrugs: "I owe it to myself to have one more crack."
All of tennis will wish him well.
