Daniil Medvedev fought back from the brink to beat Alexander Zverev 5-7, 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 6-3 in a thrilling Australian Open semi-final on Friday and stay on course for his second grand slam title.
Having suffered heartbreak at Melbourne Park in back-to-back final defeats by Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in 2021 and 2022, former US Open champion Medvedev will hope to get third time lucky when he meets Italian youngster Jannik Sinner on Sunday.
“Very impressive,” third seed Medvedev said of his opponent. “I need to recover well and be 100 per cent on Sunday.
“We have a saying ‘third time lucky’. Hopefully here it’ll work. It would mean a lot.”
Medvedev positioned himself well behind the baseline to counter Zverev’s booming serves and extend the rallies but he fired a series of early double faults to fall behind. He clawed his way back from two breaks down to draw level at 5-5.
Zverev struck again to move in front and raised his arms to huge applause after taking the first set with a superb backhand volley, having set up the opportunity by winning the previous point after an exhausting 51-shot rally.
“In the first set, we both played not very good, second set I played better but he played very well,” said Medvedev.
Zverev came into the net more and broke for a 3-2 lead in the second set, but Medvedev did not give up despite looking like he had just run a marathon and pinched the third set in a tiebreak.
Medvedev continued to push hard in a tense fourth set and the 27-year-old shrugged off a double fault in the tiebreak to level the contest, before breaking in the fifth game of the decider to lay the platform for his great escape.
‘Illness to blame’
Zverev said his energy began to fade midway and blamed an illness following his win over Carlos Alcaraz in the last round. “End of the second set I started to lose energy. I started to not feel so fresh anymore,” Zverev told reporters. “I got a bit sick after the Alcaraz match with a bit of fever so that didn’t help the recovery and I did play quite a lot.”
