Alex de Minaur won't let the outlandish thought of winning one of the most prestigious tennis events outside the grand slams preoccupy him after reaching the semi-finals of the Queen's Club Championships.
The Australian No.1 admits it would be "surreal" to lift the celebrated grass-court crown which has been won in the past by a host of his greatest tennis compatriots from Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall, to Rod Laver and Lleyton Hewitt.
But for the second time in three years into the last-four, the 24-year-old has put himself in with a fighting chance again after finally managing checkmate on Friday in what he felt was a real chess match on grass against tricky French veteran Adrian Mannarino.
It took the Sydneysider nearly two-and-a-half hours to finally subdue his always tricky opponent 6-4 4-6 6-4 in their quarter-final at the most revered of the pre-Wimbledon warm-up events in London.
Two years ago, de Minaur also reached the last-four only to be overpowered by Matteo Berrettini; now he has another opportunity to make the final, as he tackles Holger Rune, the soaring Danish teenager who defeated Italian Lorenzo Musetti 6-4 7-5 in his quarter.
"I haven't thought that far," de Minaur said with a smile, asked about the prospect of winning the title with Carlos Alcaraz, 6-4 6-4 winner over Grigor Dimitrov, and Sebastian Korda, who beat Briton Cameron Norrie 6-4 7-6 (7-1), set to meet in Saturday's other semi.
"Obviously would be pretty surreal to win it. But the whole plan is to take advantage of this part of the year and hopefully gather some points and really set myself up in the rankings to finish the year strong.
"That's the ultimate goal, and I'm playing some great tennis. Hopefully, I can keep it going. I played very well last year at Wimby, so that's obviously the main goal."
De Minaur, who beat Mannarino at the Australian Open earlier this year, had to repel a stirring comeback from the 34-year-old on a humid London afternoon.
Employing his slice to force the elegant-hitting Mannarino into generating his own power, both players had their spells in the ascendancy.
"We both hate playing each other, we always have battles. We always know it's going to be a chess match out there the way we play," said de Minaur.
Mannarino, who had enjoyed one of the biggest wins of his career last week over Daniil Medvedev on the s'Hertogenbosch grass, is always a menace on this surface with his fine returns and easy, flat hitting.
So de Minaur can consider neutralising that threat to be another significant triumph in a week when he's already earned emphatic victories over Andy Murray and Diego Schwartzman.
It looked plain sailing as one break for 3-2 was enough for him to take the first set, and when he earned another early break in the second, he looked in full control.
But the deceptive leftie Mannarino, despite needing strapping on his hamstring, struck back with some brilliance to level the match.
And even when de Minaur broke at the start of the decider, he found it hard to put away the Frenchman, who hit back to level at 4-4 only to have his delivery cracked for the fourth and most decisive time in the key ninth game.
Another Australian who's warming up nicely for Wimbledon is Jason Kubler, who's reached the final of a second-tier Ilkley Trophy Challenger event in Yorkshire.
The former world junior No.1 defeated Frenchman Arthur Cazaux 4-6 6-3 6-1 in the semi-final to set up a showdown on Saturday with Austria's Sebastian Ofner, who beat Hungarian Zsombor Piros 6-3 6-0.
