It hasn't been a great year for my favorite tennis player Daniil Medvedev and honestly, it is starting to look like we are going to see him retire soon because things just seem to get worse and worse. It has been a while since he was considered someone that is going to make a break for the final in any major and lately, his ranking seems to be the only thing that is fearsome about him. His ranking from world number 1 to number 13 has been rapid, and his latest match, which just concluded an hour ago, was an embarrassing loss to an much lower ranked opponent that was filled with Medvedev acting like a baby throughout the entire thing.
I'm on my sofa watching my favorite tennis player have a temper tantrum, smashing his racquet on the chair after getting defeated and saying to myself "oh dude, stop it please... you are not doing yourself any favors." one of the commentators said "it would probably be best if he just left the court at this point."
It's become all too common lately with Daniil but he got into multiple arguments with the umpire during the match as well.
The match was constantly delayed by booing fans who surprisingly, seemed to have Medvedev's back and were cheering for him, not against him. He frequently played to the crowd and was being a real jerk by mimicking his opponent's mannerisms for when he does something well. It was very childish and I started to kind of feel bad for Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi, who was doing nothing wrong other than playing well.
Maybe Daniil's rage is part of his game now, because things looked like an easy 3 set victory for Bonzi, but then Medvedev broke his serve, took it to a tie-breaker and then WON the 3rd set, and this made the already rambunctious crowd erupt. The crowd became increasingly difficult to control when Medvedev won the next set 6-0.
I don't know if Daniil got complacent at this point but entering set 5 the mood was that the Russian was going to close this thing out in glorious fashion but well, Bonzi came back on the court looking like he did in sets 1 and 2 and went to win the game, set, and match while breaking serve for Daniil. Serving is a major part of Medvedev's game, and this was really surprising.
He went to the net and shook Bonzi's hand and was polite about that, but then the rage must come back and he returned to his seat and smashed a racquet and the camera went to the crowd to show his wife exiting the stadium with her back turned. Things aren't looking good for my favorite tennis player. Daniil has seen the US Open final 3 times starting in 2019 where he lost to Nadal, then again in 2021 where he won vs. Djokovic and once again last year where he lost to Djokovic. He is seen as one of the greats when playing on hard surface and to see him crash out in the 1st round on his best playing surface, against a guy ranked nearly 40 places below him, is not a good look.
At this point I wonder if there is anything that he can do to turn it around and honestly, I don't think so.
He is 29 years old and while that isn't old in the grand scheme of things in tennis when you reach this age you are normally dominating in a top position or your are fading away. There are not many stories of people that started to slip at the age of 30 and then turned it around in the next decade. I fear that we may not see a resurgence here and perhaps this is why Daniil himself is so angry on the court all the time.
Perhaps the nearly $50 million in prize money alone over the years is enough to keep him happy for a while. One would think.