Daniil Medvedev retrieved his pickle juice, fresh from a 36-shot rally. The Australian in the other chair sucked down a gel. John Millman knows hard work. He is maybe his country’s biggest battler. Two days ago he played his best tennis in the last two of his five sets against Marc-Andrea Hüsler, dipping in energy and then re-emerging more alive than the first time. But anybody who has ever heard about Medvedev’s training regime can attest he is more durable than he looks. His four-hour sessions including vomit-worthy medicine-ball drills and hitting practice across the width of two courts have injected his lanky limbs with a capacity to tolerate the intolerable, and then tolerate some more.
This particular change of ends came midway through his second set against Millman. The first was a 63-minute marathon featuring seven breaks of serve and an average rally length of 10.65 shots. The average rally length on the ATP Tour over the past decade is four. Perhaps the discrepancy comes down to the fact Medvedev and Millman had never played each other before Wednesday night.
“The score in the second and third sets didn’t reflect everything that went on on the court,” Medvedev said after sealing what appeared on paper a routine 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 win. “The first set he managed to break me three times – it’s not that often that that happens. He played amazing, so great credit to you, John.”
Millman was gallant and full of grit on Margaret Court Arena and, for the opening hour at least, it looked like it was going to be a long night. The 33-year-old is currently ranked 140th in the world but spent the opening exchanges short-angling the seventh seed, sitting deep and working him wider and wider, and then off the court, adding variation with the odd approach to the net.
The exchanges were long and slow, more pushing and probing than explosive and more unforced errors than winners, and yet it was also highly engaging. By the time the score reached 3-3 each had already broken the other twice, Millman the most recent via a 13-minute game including six deuces and four break points. By then, both had run more than 750 metres.
What Millman probably did not realise is that he was unwittingly playing Medvedev into form, priming the 2022 runner-up for another deep run in this edition. Where the man who kept him from last year’s title, Rafael Nadal, had crumbled and bowed out in straight sets hours earlier, Medvedev has the look of a man just getting started.
Millman can run for days but his opponent is seven years younger, 15cm taller and more malleable than gold. He had him on the slide and in quick changes of direction, and his serve yielded more easy points the more the match progressed. He stepped up to the baseline to better negotiate the acute angles and increasingly utilised the drop shot. The points did not get any shorter but there was Millman found himself covering more territory and fatiguing at a greater rate.
“Physically for both of us it was tough,” Medvedev said. “One moment in the first set I was like: ‘How I’m going to handle this?’ – I was already pretty tired. But there was one point on the break point and I made one cross-court shot and he didn’t even run, so I go: ‘OK, it’s tough for him also.’ The second and third I was playing even slower like: ‘OK John, if you want to beat me let’s play 30- or 40-shot rallies.’”
And that is how it went, all the way to the end. Before the third set Millman changed his socks, sweating even though the temperature was 16C compared to Tuesday night’s 38C. Medvedev was sweating too in his strip the colour of Russia’s flag – there were no real flags to be seen. Millman saved two match points with the local crowd behind him. Two match points later Medvedev claimed the match with an ace. He pulled up his shorts and flexed his quad. The crowd liked him a bit, too. He did not tell anyone to “fuck off” like he did during his first match.
“I do think I have a little bit of muscles,” the world No 8 said. “But not too much.”
