Zverev and Medvedev, close enemies: “He is one of the dirtiest tennis players in the world”

The Australian Open will face the men’s semifinals this Friday. Everyone is focused on the first of them, the one between Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner at 04:30 in the morning Spanish peninsular time, but the Daniil Medvedev-Alexander Zverev at 09:30 is not far behindnot in the tennis aspect or in the non-sports aspect.

And it was that The relationship between Russian and German was full of tense moments, very tense. Although they have met 18 times (11-7 for the Russian), their first in 2016, the first big drama doesn’t come until April 2023when they met in the round of 16 of the Monte Carlo Masters 1000.

That day, Medvedev did his thing and went to the bathroom without permission when he was behind the scoreboard. In addition, he confronted the public several times and knocked down one of the poles holding the net.

After the match, which ended with the Russian winning the third set tiebreak, Zverev did not hesitate to assess his rival’s attitude. “He is one of the dirtiest tennis players in the world. I try to take sportsmanship and fair play very seriously, he doesn’t. Take a bathroom break when this is not possible. There are 1,000 situations where he feels that I am starting to play better and where he tries to do everything all the time” he lamented.

“I am very disappointed in him as an athlete. Of course you can argue that I am wrong. because I was distracted. That shouldn’t have happened on my part and it’s totally my fault and I feel bad on my part. But I still feel that fair play should be part of sport,” he added in a tense press conference.

Medvedev’s response did not take long. Far from trying to calm things down, he chose to add fuel to the fire. “What happened yesterday, the stick thing? Did you say what you said? And the toilet thing, well, I want to pee. What do you want me to do? I went to the bathroom, I lost the next two games, He was serving to win the game and said I was going to the bathroom so he could play better. Sascha lives in his own world” he claimed.

“When he loses, we can find about 25 interviews where he says something different. I know that I am guilty of controversies with men like Casper Ruud, Diego Schwartzman or Karen Khachanov, and I am sorry that they might feel negative things about my way of being because they are very nice people. But Zverev is not this kind of person, he is not like them. “You should look in the mirror,” he continued.

Finally, Medvedev made it clear that he had no German connection: “We have never been friends, maybe only for juniors. Only he, in his valedictory speeches, He said something like he was a friend of mine and my wife, which is definitely not the case. for a long time,” he said.

Then, the temper of the two calmed down.. In their last four duels there was no bloodshed, although they did not hide the passion.

“He has been kicking my ass a lot for the past year.“said ‘Sascha’ in the interview after his victory over Carlos Alcaraz in reference to the five victories in the six games they played in 2023.

“A lot of games are very close, obviously. You know, he was very confident last year, he played the best tennis of his life.. “I, on the other hand, am coming back from an injury and don’t have the confidence to make decisions and the power to finish games.”

This Friday, both will need good service and risk more than necessary to avoid putting a physique in trouble because of the two five-set matches each had in the previous rounds.

The Muscovite scored the victory in the final round against the Finnish Emil Ruusuvuori and the Polish Hubert Hurkacz (9)while the German did the same against the Slovak from the previous round, Lukas Klein and the British Cameron Norrie (19).

Medvedev could get the ticket for his third Australian Open final and Zverev could become the third Germanbehind his compatriots Boris Becker and Rainer Schuettler, to reach the final on the banks of the Yarra River.