Daniil Medvedev was visibly disappointed by his loss in the
Australian Open final but the Russian opened his post-match press conference with a longish monologue where he spoke about his life story in tennis.
The monologue also touched upon something the Russian has been experiencing lately which has left him massively disappointed. Medvedev and crowds have always had an interesting dynamic and while the Russian enjoys teasing the crowd and interacting with it, he is still disappointed by the lack of support he receives compared to other players.
He said:
"I'm just going to give one small example. Before Rafa serves even in the fifth set there would be somebody, and I would even be surprised, like one guy screaming, ‘C'mon Daniil’. A thousand people would be like, ‘Tsss, tsss, tsss'. That sound. Before my serve, I didn't hear it. It's disrespectful, it's disappointing. I'm not sure after 30 years I'm going to want to play tennis."
Medvedev was honest about his belief that nationality plays a big key in this, as he is seeing it a lot when Russians play:
"I think nationality plays a key. It's just that Russian tennis was a little bit down for some time. I think I'm trying really, I feel there is a lot more buzz about tennis in Russia right now with me, Andrey (Rublev), Karen (Khachanov), Aslan (Karatsev), doing big things. That's great. Hopefully we'll try to get more people to go for us. But yeah, I can definitely see when you playing somebody from the other country, they would go for them and not for a Russian or something like this."
Medvedev added that he stopped dreaming about tennis saying:
"I'm just talking about few moments where the kid stopped dreaming, and today was one of them. I'm not going to really tell why. From now on I'm playing for myself, for my family, to provide my family, for people that trust in me, of course for all the Russians because I feel a lot of support there."
And he ended on this:
“I'm going to say it like this. If there is a tournament on hard courts in Moscow, before Roland Garros or Wimbledon, I'm going to go there even if I miss the Wimbledon or Roland Garros or whatever. The kid stopped dreaming. The kid is going to play for himself. That's it. That's my story."