He will not repeat his feat of last year. Daniil Medvedev, 8e world and finalist of the last two editions of the Australian Open, was eliminated in the third round of the competition, Friday, January 20, in Melbourne. He lost in three sets, 7-6 (9/7), 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), to American Sebastian Korda, 31e global.
The Russian, who had become world number 1 a month after his final in the Australian Major last year, never found the solution against Korda. The latter will face the Pole Hubert Hurkacz (11e) to try to climb, for the first time in his career, in the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament.
Lack of confidence “
“He played at a good level and maybe even a little bit better than his ‘good level’. Me, I didn’t play badly at all, but just a little below what it would have taken to win.said Medvedev after the meeting, adding that he had ” most likely “ lack ” of confidence ” in him. “There were a lot of run-ins and I didn’t win a lot of those nice rallies. He won more, he hit more lines than meexplained the champion of the US Open 2021. JI think it was a great match in which he was simply better than me. I myself have won a lot of matches like that. »
The player also admitted to having “hard to win this type of match against opponents capable of playing at a good level”lately. “That’s what I need to find”he concluded.
Daniil Medvedev had become, on February 28, the first player outside the Big 4 (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray) to become world number 1 since Andy Roddick in February 2004. But, for a few months, he has been getting less good results. He was 8e in the ATP ranking for this Australian Open and he will be out of the top 10 at the end of the Australian Major.
