Second seed Daniil Medvedev started his post-match press conference in an unique fashion after losing the Australian Open final after a five-hour-24-minute epic. He began with a story about himself as a kid, who started playing the sport with dreams.
At the end of the monologue, he said: “I am not going to explain why. The kid has stopped dreaming. From here on, I will just play for myself & to provide for my family.”
The Russian again polarised the packed Rod Laver Arena, which was firmly behind Rafael Nadal in the men’s singles final.
Medvedev was also unhappy about shouts from spectators as he was about to serve.
“It’s disappointing and it’s disrespectful,” he said, while bemoaning that fans often don’t get behind him when he plays one of the sports’ legends like Nadal.
“When I also started to get just a little bit higher like top 20 top 30 you know start to play Novak Roger Rafa, we made some tough matches, I haven’t beat them yet and there was a lot of talks I remember I don’t think there is that much right now but I remember there were a lot of talks like ‘young generation should do better’ or like people saying ‘we really want young generation to go for it to to be better to be stronger’ and I was like pumped up I was like ‘yeah let’s try you know to to give them hard time’ and everything,” said Medvedev.
“Well I guess these people were lying because yeah every time I stepped on the court in these big matches I really didn’t see much people who wanted me to win. It’s a cumulative thing but tonight was uh like, how you call it, like the top of the mountain.”
Medvedev insisted Sunday he was not disappointed to give up a two-set lead and lose the Australian Open, while heaping praise on “unreal” Nadal.
The world number two looked destined to clinch a second Grand Slam title after his US Open breakthrough last year when he held three break points against Nadal’s serve in the third set after winning the first two at Melbourne Park.
But the never-say-die Spaniard saved them all before battling back for a famous 2-6, 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory in a gruelling 5hr 24min to deny Medvedev and win a historic 21st Grand Slam title.
“If we talk about tennis, I’m not that disappointed. It was a huge match,” said the 25-year-old Russian.
“For sure, some small points, small details that I could have done better if I wanted to win. But that’s tennis, that’s life. Rafa played unreal, he raised his level.”
It was the second time Nadal had denied Medvedev in a Grand Slam decider, winning a five-set epic at the 2019 US Open.
“At two sets to love up I was just like, ‘go for him’,” said Medvedev, who was in his fourth Grand Slam final.
“In the fifth set I was just like ‘make him run’. But he was unreal, he was really strong the way he played.
“So talking about tennis, I don’t have much regret. I’m going to try and continue my best, work even harder to try to be a champion of some of these great tournaments one day.”
(With inputs from AFP)
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