You can just see a teenage Daniil Medvedev, an irascible champion-wannabe in his native Moscow, full of Safin-sized aspirations and a flip-switch temperament easily triggered when things didn’t go his way on a tennis court.
We saw glimpses of that attitude in New York last summer, on the last leg of his miraculous run through the North American hard-court season, when he reached consecutive finals in Washington, Montreal, Cincinnati and Flushing Meadows; glimpses of McEnronian proclivities that repeatedly invited the Queens equivalent of a Bronx cheer. He welcomed it, really, putting hand to ear as if to challenge his detractors to turn up the volume.
It wasn’t until his heroic effort against the beloved Rafa Nadal, whom he pushed to the limit over five sets in Arthur Ashe Stadium in the title match, that ticket-holders realized he was out-New Yorking the New Yorkers themselves. He gave them everything but the chin-flick: Whatsamattayou! And they loved him for it.
This delightfully villainous character had to be one of theirs, didn’t he? Who else would have the moxie to stand up to them like that? Who else would find motivation in that cauldron of boos?
Medvedev and countryman Andrey Rublev, his former junior rival, this week regaled the (virtual) media with stories of their youth, both confessing that they were less than role-model material in their formative years back in Russia.
“We were the worst juniors in terms of attitude that you could see,” Medvedev confided. “We were crying, throwing the racquets over the fans. We were young, of course, so we hated to lose.”
“Both of us were crazy on court,” concurred Rublev. “Destroying the racquets, complaining. He’s one of the biggest fighters that I ever saw in my life, since he was 7 years old. He could play lobs for hours just to win.”
The post-shutdown Medvedev, 24, proved last summer’s run was no fluke, racing through to the 2020 US Open semifinals (including a win over Rublev in the quarterfinals) without dropping a set, an unblemished 15-for-15. But no player in the Open era had ever won the US Open men’s singles title without dropping a set.
No. 2 seed Dominic Thiem would rudely remind him of that in Friday’s semifinal, out-slugging the Muscovite in three sets, 6-2, 7-6, 7-6. Unaccustomed to trailing in the opening set, Medvedev began to bark at the chair ump and courtside officials, at one point crossing the net mid-game, strictly verboten in the professional game, and was promptly slapped with an unsportsmanlike conduct warning.
This is, of course, where Medvedev would usually have employed the crowd, using them as fuel to work his way back into the proceedings. Only there was no crowd to be found.
Perhaps that was his undoing, the lack of a co-conspirator, or maybe it was just Thiem’s brick-wall stubbornness. The Austrian, who’s so often penned in as the fourth option behind the Big Three conglomerate of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic, was just so unrelenting from the baseline, even in slippery shoes. When you’ve existed in the shadow of one-time King of Clay Thomas Muster for as long as he has, you want to make your own name. Now he’s into his second major final of the year and his fourth overall, this time against Alexander Zverev. Will he finally get that elusive trophy?
Medvedev was attempting to become the youngest Grand Slam champion since Novak Djokovic at this very same tournament in 2011. But it wasn’t in the cards for 2020.
“It’s sad to play without the crowd,” said Medvedev, the No. 3 seed in New York. “We love playing for the fans. As we saw last year, even sometimes when they are against you, you can interact with them, which is good.”
Given his affinity for hard courts and his New Yorkian sensibilities, one gets the feeling we’ll see Medvedev back in the Flushing final again in the not-too-distant future. We can only hope the fans will be there, too.
WATCH: Daniil Medvedev's semifinal press conference
