Daniil Medvedev has been known as many issues lately – an octopus, an unfair participant, an unwitting feminist icon – however he has not, sadly, been known as a Grand Slam champion.
The Russian certified for 2 Main finals prior to now six months however misplaced each of them – first the 2023 U. S. Open to Novak Djokovic, then this weekend’s Australian Open to Jannik Sinner. That is quite a lot of last-hurdle failure in a brief period of time and from the skin, it’s appeared awfully depressing to be Medvedev.
However to listen to the person himself inform it, issues couldn’t be higher.
“Now, I’m dreaming greater than ever. However I’d say it’s not anymore a child who’s dreaming,” Medvedev mentioned, reflecting after his AO loss to Sinner on Sunday. “It’s me, myself, proper now, a 27-year-old who’s dreaming, and who’s doing every little thing that’s attainable for my future and for my current. I like it.”
That’s the fantastic thing about Medvedev, a perplexing, awkward, completely idiosyncratic athlete whose refusal to suit the mildew brings him proper again round to brilliance. He has by no means appeared like his friends on the circuit; the place they’re steely (like Djokovic) or explosive (like Rafael Nadal) Medvedev is neither – and noticeably so.
When Medvedev, performs, he’s a 6-foot-6 twister of ungainly, unimaginable shapes. He usually disappears for units at a time, misplaced deep within the quagmire of his personal mind. He doesn’t are likely to win as a result of he outplays his opponents; he wins as a result of he outlasts them, generally till 3:40 within the morning, usually leveraging the gang as a instrument to assist him keep aggressive lengthy after many would fold.
Briefly, he’s not the awe-inspiring performer that we’ve come to cherish in males’s tennis. He’s one thing totally different – a daily man who simply received’t give up, working together with his flaws and figuring issues out in actual time on the court docket.
