There are these players who follow others throughout their careers. It is still too early to say whether Daniil Medvedev will fill that role in that of Félix Auger-Aliassime, but the Russian seems well on his way to doing so.
For the seventh time in as many games, the Russian showed the Quebecer the exit door in the third round of the Australian Open on Saturday.
And this time it had nothing to do with that epic duel the two men fought on the same ground in Melbourne two years ago, when Medvedev had to come from two sets down and save a match point to beat “FAA”. defeat in the quarterfinals.
No, in this third-round clash, played in prime time in Australia (7:00 p.m. local time, 3:00 a.m. Eastern time), the third-seeded player seemed to be leading throughout this time: 6-3, 6-4 and 6-3, in 2 hours and 09 minutes of play, despite heavy blows from the Quebecer and a break at the start of the second set.
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The organizers had reserved the second most prestigious place on the ground, the Margaret Court Arena, for this duel between the former world number 1 and the former sixth, who was relegated to position 27 in the rankings, for these two weeks due to his difficult season 2023.
But the fire never started. Especially because Medvedev, at 1.90 meters tall, is one of the best, if not the best, in the world on hard courts.
Still too many presents
He demonstrated this again on Saturday, with methodical play despite the four hours he spent on the field two days ago, while the 23-year-old Quebecer once again drowned in his unforced errors (43 in this game).
While it could have easily made it to the second round against French qualifier Hugo Grenier (he made 46 in four rounds at the time), this was not the case against the 2021 US Open champion.
Photo AFP
Still good
There will have been a lot of good things for Félix in these fourteen days, even if he would have certainly wished they had lasted longer.
He will have survived the first round of a major tournament, a first since the Australian Open last year, where he lost in the fourth round to Czech Jiri Lehecka.
He was able to dig deep to get back into the swing of things in his first match when stubborn Austrian Dominic Thiem came from two sets down to equalize.
Photo AFP
An emotional victory in five rounds and as many hours that he can certainly draw inspiration from when his back is against the wall.
And he will not have had any bad thoughts in the second round against Grenier, when the Frenchman, ranked 178th in the world, won the second set.
Like a big victory
On the contrary, Auger-Aliassime came back with a confident attacking game and won the next two rounds, while almost all of the favorites worked very hard on the courts on this completely crazy Wednesday day.
That's a big victory in itself, coming on the day after a season in which he certainly struggled with injuries, but also with his confidence.
While he waits to rebuild a ranking that will prevent him from facing these big names so early in the biggest tournaments.