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'What Novak Would Do?' Medvedev Finds the Answer to Defeat Canadian Auger-Aliassime

INTERNATIONAL: Top seed Daniil Medvedev has battled back from two sets down and saved a match point against Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach the Australian Open semi-finals with a 6-7 3-6 7-6 7-5 6-4 victory in the early hours of Thursday, January 27.

Daniil Medvedev has simply refused to lie down as he overturned a two-set deficit for only the second time in his career to set up a Friday semi-final against Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas.

The 25-year-old Russian had his back firmly up against the wall for much of an absorbing contest as Felix Auger-Aliassime produced some stunning tennis on Rod Laver Arena. Ninth seed Auger-Aliassime, 21, was the dominant player in the first set and despite a wobble when serving at 6-5 he won a tiebreak courtesy of some uncharacteristic Medvedev errors.

Daniil Medvedev says ; "I was not playing my best and Felix was playing unbelievable, serving unbelievable, he was all over me, to be honest, all over the place. I didn't really know what to do, so it was like - actually, I don't know if people are going to like it, but I told myself: 'What Novak would do?'

He further adds; "I didn't know, what came to my mind was that, because he's one of the greatest champions - or Rafa or Roger, to be honest, they've won so many matches like this and I just thought, ok, I'm going to make him work. If he wants to win it, he needs to, you know, fight to the last point and if it's 5-0 40-0 for him, I'm going to try to make him tired for the next match, you know, just fight to the last point, and it worked, I managed to raise my level during the game, especially in the tiebreak, actually I was finding when they closed the roof, I suddenly felt the momentum changing my game, I felt that I could go through the court more, serve better and, yeah, just started playing better now."

Auger-Aliassime has cruised through the second set against a subdued Medvedev to move to within a set of a first career win against the Russian and a second Grand Slam semi-final. Medvedev was hanging on towards the end of the third set as Auger-Aliassime has sensed victory but managed to close out a tiebreak after a shower caused the roof to be closed. Auger-Aliassime had a match point in the 10th game of the fourth set after a Medvedev double-fault but the Russian responded with huge serving to stay alive.

Medvedev then broke serve in the next game and held his own to extend the match into a decider -- finally seizing the initiative with an early break as the match moved past midnight and into its fifth hour.

Auger-Aliassime had one last chance when he earned a break back point trailing 4-3 but Medvedev snatched away the opportunity with a timely ace. Serving for the match, Medvedev has showed some cracks in his armour as he went down 15-40, but rattled off four consecutive points to claim victory after four hours and 42 minutes.


PHOTO: MEDVEDEV DEFEATS AUGER-ALIASSIME


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