In the early hours of January 17th, Beijing time, a thrilling second-round match at the Australian Open men's singles saw No. 5 seed and Russian star Daniil Medvedev battle for five sets before losing 2-3 to 19-year-old qualifier Hugo Grenier, ending his run in the Australian Open men's singles and becoming the highest-seeded player to exit the men's singles competition. This marks Medvedev's worst performance in a hardcourt Grand Slam in seven years, as he fails to progress beyond the first two rounds of the Australian Open since 2018.
As a former US Open champion and last year's Australian Open runner-up, Medvedev has been in poor form this tournament. In the first round, he narrowly advanced after a five-set battle, winning 3-2 against a Thai underdog. In the second round, he faced Grenier, ranked 121st in the world, with whom he had never previously played.
In the first set, Medvedev took an early lead at 3-1 but then lost his rhythm, dropping five consecutive games to lose the set 3-6. The second set saw a similar scenario, with Medvedev leading 2-0 before being caught up to 6-all. In the subsequent tiebreak, Medvedev lost three points after a 4-all tie, ultimately losing the tiebreak 4-7 and falling behind 0-2 in total score.
With no room for error in the third set, Medvedev was pushed to another tiebreak by Grenier. Grenier even had a match point at 7-6 in the tiebreak, but Medvedev made an incredible comeback, winning 10-8 to take one set back. In the fourth set, Medvedev's spirits lifted as he won five games in a row, establishing a 5-0 lead. He eventually took the set 6-1, leveling the total score to 2-2.
In the decisive fifth set, Medvedev found himself trailing 1-3 but managed to catch up to 3-all. He broke serve in the 11th game to lead 6-5. However, Medvedev was broken back by Grenier in his serve-to-win-the-match game, forcing them into a brutal tiebreak decider. In the tiebreak, Medvedev lost three points after a 7-all tie, narrowly losing 7-10. Ultimately, Medvedev was eliminated in the second round with a total score of 2-3.
Statistics show that the match lasted an astonishing 4 hours and 48 minutes, ending close to 3 AM local time in Melbourne. In the next round, Grenier will face Frenchman Ugo Humbert to compete for a place in the men's singles top 16.