Jannik Sinner, world No 1, is out of Wimbledon after a five-set defeat to Russian No 5 seed Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Medvedev came through a gruelling match 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3, after Sinner struggled physically in the middle sets. He looked breathless under the Centre Court roof at various points. At 1-2 down in the third, a doctor examined Sinner and checked his heart-rate, the Italian leaving the court for an 11-minute delay before play resumed.
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Sinner recovered sufficiently to break back in the set and force a tiebreak, but he lost it 7-4 and at that point it appeared that Medvedev was well set to reach his second consecutive Wimbledon semifinal. Sinner then rallied impressively, whatever treatment he had received off-court appearing to help, and he won the fourth set comfortably 6-2.
But Medvedev came back strongly in the final set, pinching the decisive break in the fourth game and then holding his serve after a string of deuces. A few games later, he served the match out nervelessly to love.
The victory will feel nothing less than monumental for Medvedev, the world No 5, who has been beaten again and again in big events by one of Sinner (the Australian Open final in January), Carlos Alcaraz (last year’s Wimbledon semifinal) or Novak Djokovic (last year’s US Open final). Those five straight defeats to Sinner had come after Medvedev won their first six meetings — an indication of how the balance of power had shifted in men’s tennis.
It may only be a stay of execution when it comes to avoiding elimination by one of men’s tennis best three players, but it will be a huge confidence boost going into the US Open either way. As for Sinner, he will be devastated to go out at this stage as he looks to build on breaking his Grand Slam duck at the Australian Open in January. He’ll also be disappointed that after not looking at his best physically in last month’s French Open semifinal defeat to Alcaraz, he again wasn’t completely healthy here.
Medvedev will face either defending champion Carlos Alcaraz or American Tommy Paul on Friday afternoon.
What did Medvedev say after the match?
“Mentally it was a good match today because I actually didn’t think about the match in Australia (which he lost in five sets).
“I was not thinking before the fifth set, ‘oh, my God, it’s again five sets.'”
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He reflected on how close the match was — with Sinner winning more points overall, and leading nearly every metric outside of net points — even there, he had a better winning percentage of 71 to 66.
“In my opinion, grass is always a surface where it’s very tough to win like straight three sets, like 4-4-4. One break can decide the outcome of the set. You do one bad game on your serve, double-fault, easy miss or something like this, and you can lose the set,” Medvedev said.
What did Sinner say after the match?
In his post-match press conference, the Italian said “I was not feeling great.
“I didn’t vomit. But I took some time because I was dizzy quite a lot — actually off court I had the toughest time, maybe.”
He added that he had no desire to consider retiring from the match, saying that he “retired a lot two years ago. It’s something I don’t want to do if it’s only a little bit of illness or sick.”
(Francois Nel / Getty Images)
