Daniil Medvedev created some records by contesting the 2024 Australian Open final, but none of them were positive.
The Russian has established himself as one of the better players of this generation, but he's starting to show an unfortunate pattern when it comes to Grand Slams. In 2019, he lost the first Grand Slam final he had ever contested.
He then lost one more major final, before finally winning his first Grand Slam. But he has lost two more since then, and this was the third, making his Grand Slam final record overall 1-5.
Unfortunately, because the Russian is a very good player, he was just quite unlucky in some of these finals. For example, he lost to Rafael Nadal in Melbourne in 2022 despite being 2-0 up. That's what happened also this year when Jannik Sinner beat him.
Once again, Medvedev was up 2-0 in sets, but the Italian came back and, by coming back, made Medvedev the first player ever to lose two Australian Open finals despite being up 2-0.
He also became the player with the most sets played at a Grand Slam ever with 31, but that's again not a record that you want to hold. It implies that you struggled, which is true in his case as he played four five-set matches.
The final set was the fifth set of his final match, which he lost, so it's a pretty unfortunate conclusion for Medvedev. It is a positive for him overall, but nobody wants to be the runner-up, least of all Medvedev.
We'll see how he responds in the coming weeks and whether he can defend some of the trophies he won in the first part of the year last year, but he seemed to be quite upbeat following the loss, suggesting he may deal with it fine.
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