Third seed Daniil Medvedev complained of breathing difficulties in the midst of his four-set win over Alex de Minaur in the fourth round of the 2023 US Open.
The Russian struggled mightily from the outset on a humid Monday evening inside Louis Armstrong Stadium. Just three games into the match, a tournament doctor tended to Medvedev and stated that he was struggling to breathe. At the behest of the umpire's permission, he received an inhaler to help him overcome the problem.
But it looked like Medvedev was unsure of how to use it and ended up losing the first set 6-2 in just over half an hour. That prompted Medvedev to leave the court at the changeover and carry his entire equipment and gear bag. Medvedev took an extended break before returning in a complete change of attire.
The World No. 3 started to play better from the second set, although he acknowledged that his response towards heat conditions was extremely poor and felt that was going to be the case during his practice session at the start of the day.
"So tough, so humid today. When I practiced before the match, like usually four hours before the match, straightaway I was like, Oh, my God, it's going to be tough. It was going to be tough for everyone who was there today."
Medvedev, however, described his massive service performance changed the entire complexion of the match. The 2021 champion nullified De Minaur's resistance and broke him six times in the next three sets.
After winning 67% first-serve points in a dismal first set, Medvedev improved on that number considerably at the ned match, finishing with 81% first-serve points won to set up a meeting against Andrey Rublev.
"The thing is I don't think it worked because I kind of don't know how to use it. I don't think it worked. But I'm not sure. It was very tough to breathe in the beginning for me. So I didn't know before that you can do it. I really have trouble breathing, so now I'm not going to joke about it like two days or four days ago. I'm going to use it."
"I think the turning point was second serve. I managed to serve very well till the end of the match. That gave me some air on my serve to kind of relax a little bit. I managed to put just a little bit more pressure on his serve here and there, then the match turned."
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