At some point during the near five-hours he spent on the Rod Laver Arena Daniil Medvedev had started mimicking his opponent Felix Auger-Aliassime’s distinctive grunt.
Was the US Open champ trolling the young Canadian?
“That's my character,” Medvedev said. “When I talk to a person a lot, I start to be like them in many things. It’s not on purpose. If I have a new friend and talk to him a lot, I start to do some phrases like him. I'll start to sometimes act like him.”
The 25-year-old explained, “Felix was putting a lot of intensity in his grunt, and when I started to fight for my life, I also grunt. I didn't think about this then. Now, when I rethink, at one time after a point, I was like, did I just grunt like him?”
“It's not every match that I grunt like my opponent,” Medvedev said, “but this one was pretty tight, so maybe something was going through the brain unconsciously, that made it happen like this.”
What next then? Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinals.
“I'm definitely not going to start playing one-handed backhand, that's for sure,” the Russian said.
Just as well. A hotpot that doesn’t need more salt.
