MELBOURNE, Australia — As tough as it was to stomach for Daniil Medvedev to blow a two-set lead and lose another Australian Open final, he put a positive spin on his grueling run at the season-opening major.
Medvedev dominated the first two sets against first-time finalist Jannik Sinner on Sunday night before his quick-points gameplan started to unravel.
The 22-year-old Sinner climbed out of a deep hole to win his first Grand Slam title 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3, consigning Medvedev to a fifth loss in his six major finals.
“It’s very, very tough when you have a mentality, I don’t want to say champion, but a good mentality, a sport mentality, it’s very tough to lose in the final,” Medvedev said. “It kind of hurts more.
“But you have to try to find positives — and the positive is, well, the final is better than the semifinal and quarters.”
Fair point. His oh-so-close run to a second Grand Slam title set some records.
It was his fourth five-set match of the tournament, an Open era record. And his total time on court across seven rounds — 24 hours and 17 minutes — surpassed Carlos Alcaraz’s 23:40 at the 2022 U.S. Open for another record.
Daniil Medvedev of Russia gestures as he addresses the audience following his loss to Jannik Sinner of Italy in the men’s singles final at the Australian Open tennis championships at Melbourne Park, in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024. Credit: AP/Andy Wong
“But at least I got a record in something,” he said, laughing. “I’m in the history books for something. Let’s take it!”
The first 15-day Australian Open — it started and finished on a Sunday for the first time — featured 35 five-setters, equaling the 1983 U.S. Open for the record.
Medvedev had already equaled a mark set by Pete Sampras in 1995 by reaching the Australian Open final after coming back twice from two sets down.
In two of Medvedev’s five-set matches — a second-round win over Emil Ruusuvuori that finished at almost 4 in the…
Read the full article here
