Russian Daniil Medvedev lost in the final of the Open Championship on Sunday Australian tennis player to Italian Jannik Sinner. Medvedev was one set away from winning the decisive match, but several marathon matches that the Russian tennis player played during the tournament took their toll — Daniil did not have enough strength to finish.
One set away from triumph, Medvedev approached the final with an objectively worse physical condition, unlike his opponent. In the quarterfinals and semifinals, Daniil played two five-set matches — against, respectively, Pole Hubert Hurkacz and Alexander Zverev from Germany. Both defeated opponents are top ten players, from which it is clear that the Russian acted to the limit of his capabilities. And Medvedev’s previous meetings were not easy. In total, the Russian spent more than 24 hours on the courts in Melbourne, which speaks for itself.
Sinner, in turn, reached the semifinals without losing a single game to his opponents. The Italian lost his first set at the Australian Open only to the best tennis player in the world — Novak Djokovic — in the fight for reaching the final. But this was only a temporary obstacle for Yannick — the Serbian played far from his best match and lost, breaking the winning streak in Australia that had lasted since 2018. Djokovic also lost for the first time in his career in the semi-finals of the first Grand Slam tournament of the season. Previously, Novak won ten times at this stage of the tournament — and then invariably won the trophy.
Nevertheless, there was no need to say that Sinner was the undisputed favorite in the match with Medvedev — even despite the fact that the Italian was stronger in the three previous head-to-head meetings. The fact is that for Yannick this was the first Grand Slam final in his career. And these matches are always special — and this is what the Russian pointed out before the decisive match, speaking about his chances.
Medvedev turned out to be right — his opponent at the beginning of the meeting was not himself. Sinner was unable to act sharply, he often switched to simply holding the ball in the rally, and still made mistakes — the realization of the proximity of the main victory in his career pressed on him so much. And the Russian took advantage of this for the time being — he easily won the first set with a score of 6:3.
However, at the end of the second set there was a turning point. Sinner came to his senses and finally began to impose an equal fight on Medvedev. The Russian was leading at that moment with a score of 5:1, and the Italian made the first break in this match. Daniil had to expend a lot of effort in order to win the second game with the same score as the first. But from the beginning of the third set, Yannick took the initiative. Medvedev did everything in his power — and before the fourth game he even left the court to try to replenish his energy reserves. Before the fifth game, the judge on the tower did not allow the Russian to repeat this technique.
But, alas, Daniel’s strength was not unlimited in any case. Medvedev began to make mistakes more often, and Sinner, on the contrary, sensing that his opponent was giving up, played more and more aggressively with each new game. This allowed him to make a break in each set and win the Australian Open title on the first try — 3:6, 3:6, 6:4, 6:4, 6:3.
For the Russian, this defeat was the third in the finals of the Australian Open. His loss to Djokovic in 2021 was logical, but two years ago Daniil lost the same way, leading 2-0 in sets. But it is impossible to compare that match and the current one. Then his opponent was the highly experienced Rafael Nadal, and Medvedev did not have enough experience in such fights to win. It was more of an accident. Now, as sad as it may be, Daniil initially had fewer chances than his opponent. And when Sinner stopped being nervous and found his game, they practically disappeared — after all, Medvedev is not made of iron.
Five more Russian tennis players competed in the main draw of the men's Australian Open. It is noteworthy that two of them lost to the future champion. Andrey Rublev again failed to advance beyond the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam tournament, and Karen Khachanov failed to beat Sinner a round earlier. Pavel Kotov, Roman Safiullin and Alexander Shevchenko dropped out in the early stages of the tournament.
Andreeva beat her idol. Eleven Russians competed in the women's singles at the Australian Open. The greatest hopes were placed on three tennis players in the top twenty — Lyudmila Samsonova, Daria Kasatkina and Veronika Kudermetova, as well as young Mirra Andreeva, who is not yet in the top 20 of the world rankings only because she does not play the maximum number of tournaments.
Not everyone lived up to these hopes. Thus, the 13th racket of the tournament, Samsonova, lost to the American Amanda Anisimova in the opening match. Seeded 15th, Kudermetova lost in her first match to Swiss Victoria Golubic. The 14th racket of the tournament, Kasatkina, completed one round, but in the second she gave up in front of the American Sloane Stephens. 17th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and 23rd seed Anastasia Potapova were also eliminated from the Australian Open in the early stages.
But Andreeva once again confirmed her reputation as a “thunderstorm for authorities.” Having quite easily defeated the American Bernarda Peru in the first round, Mirra in the second round even more easily dealt with sixth-seeded Onse Jabeur from Tunisia in Melbourne. The Russian gave only two games to her opponent! “Perhaps this was my best match,” Andreeva later admitted, having previously called Jabeur her idol.
Perhaps the emotional victory over such an eminent tennis player affected Mirra’s further play. She played another victorious match in Melbourne, defeating the Frenchwoman Diana Parry in the end, but in the fourth round she still lost to the former Roland Garros champion, the Czech Barbora Krejcikova.
This Australian Open has revealed to us several more interesting and promising Russian tennis players. Thus, Maria Timofeeva reached the fourth round, along the way defeating the former world number one from Denmark, Caroline Wozniacki, and the tenth-seeded Beatrice Haddad-Maia from Brazil. Elina Avanesyan and Anastasia Zakharova reached the third round, having won a number of beautiful victories, as well as Anna Blinkova, who had already proven herself at big tournaments.
The best result among Russian women at this year's Australian Open was shown by Anna Kalinskaya. Perhaps she was somewhat lucky in the early stages of the tournament — not a single seeded tennis player met until the fourth round. But when she met — and she turned out to be the 26th racket of the tournament, Jasmine Paolini from Italy — Kalinskaya showed close to ideal tennis. But in the quarterfinals, the Russian woman still lost to Zheng Qingwen from China. However, at her final press conference, Kalinskaya did not look upset, noting that she would take away more positive aspects from this tournament than negative ones.
Arina Sabalenka from Belarus won the second consecutive Australian Open. This title was easier for her than the previous one: on the way to triumph, the Belarusian did not give up a single game. Over the past 20 years, only American Serena Williams has achieved this at the 2007 tournament. Sabalenka also became the first tennis player after her compatriot Victoria Azarenka to defend her title in Melbourne. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko congratulated Arina on her victory.