By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday January 26, 2024

Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev have had their share of dust-ups on the ATP Tour, but never before had the pair of prodigious talents met at a Grand Slam.

That changed on Friday night in Melbourne, but the course of the pair’s rivalry didn’t shift as Medvedev turned the tide, turned on the jets and raced past the hard-hitting German 5-7, 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 6-3, to reach his third Australian Open final and set a date with Italy’s Jannik Sinner for the title.

“I was a little bit lost,” Medvedev admitted to the crowd of his marathon victory. “But during the third set I started saying to myself that if I lose this match I just want to be proud of myself, I want to fight until the end, fight for every point. If I lose I lose – I managed to win, so I’m very proud.”

Medvedev had his back against the wall after falling behind two sets to love without much of a fight, but he gradually scratched and crawled his way back into the contest, taking tiebreaks in each of the third and fourth sets, before he broke through with a service break for 3-2 in the fifth set and never looked back.

A relieved Medvedev closed out the contest in four hours and 15 minutes, improving to 12-7 lifetime against Zverev, and 11-2 in their last 13 meetings.

The loss marked yet another bitter disappointment for the German, who told reporters he started to run out of energy after the first two sets.

“End of the second set I started to lose energy. I started to not feel, you know, so fresh anymore,” he said. “I mean, I am a bit sick. I got a bit sick after the Alcaraz match with a bit of fever and stuff like that, so that obviously didn’t help the recovery, and I did play quite a lot.

“Against him, it’s impossible to play when you’re not 100 percent physically, because he’s literally someone that really doesn’t give you anything. He makes you work for every single point, and once you kind of can’t really do that anymore, it becomes very difficult. Obviously I was very close in the third and fourth set, but I wasn’t the same player as I was in the first two sets anymore. I was kind of just hanging on.”

Both Medvedev and Zverev entered Friday’s tussle with over 16 hours of court time and a pair of five-set wins under their belt. It would be the Russian who handled the rigors better.

Medvedev turned the tide at the start of set three, and proceede to win 84 percent of his first serve points across sets three, four and five as he never faced a break point in those sets.

Things shifted dramatically in the fourth set breaker after Medvedev tossed in a double fault to give Zverev a 5-4 lead. Dangling on the precipice, just two points from losing the match, Medvedev played a brilliant point for 5-5, finished with a forehand winner, then got a little help from lady luck as his service return dropped in for a clean winner to give him set point.

He hammered an ace out wide, one of 14 for the night, to force the fifth set.

“A little bit lucky on the five-all return, but that’s tennis,” he said of his slice winner for 6-5 in the breaker. “Sometimes you need to be lucky and today is my day.”

Medvedev completed his second comeback from two sets down of the Aussie fortnight, and improved to 7-9 overall in five-setters. The 27-year-old has drastically improved in that regard after dropping the first six five-setters of his career he has now won four on the trot and seven out of ten.

“Physically and mentally, it’s tough,” Medvedev said. “Many times in the past I was not strong enough. I’m happy because one month ago I wanted to change a little more to be strong mentally.”

Medvedev finished the contest with 52 winners and 41 unforced errors, while Zverev hit 66 winners against 70 unforced errors.

Zverev took control of the match by maintaining an aggressive posture. The German regularly trekked to the net, finishing the match with 75 net points, and winning 55 of them.

Medvedev made the wise move of shifting his return position 10 feet closer to the baseline after the first two sets. The tactic didn’t pay dividends immediately on the scoreboard, but it allowed him to change the tone of the match and spend less time chasing down Zverev’s screaming ground strokes. Eventually he broke through in the final set, converting his fourth break point of the night, which was the dagger.

Medvedev has now spent over 20 hours on court in six matches, and he’ll need to recover quickly before facing Sinner in the final. The 22-year-old Italian has been on fire in Melbourne, dropping just one set and playing less than 15 hours through six rounds.

He blasted past 10-time champion Novak Djokovic on Friday, 6-1, 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-3, to reach his maiden major final.

“Impressive,” Medvedev, who owns an 0-2 record in Australian Open finals, said of Sinner. “I need to recover well, try to be 100 percent on Sunday.”