JABAR EKSPRES – Daniil Medvedev said he was happy despite his shock first-round exit at the French Open at the hands of 172nd-ranked Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild.
The Russian actually supported his opponent who qualified and has never won a match at the Grand Slam to break into the top 30.
“Every time I finish I’m happy,” said world number two Medvedev after losing to Seyboth Wild 7-6 (7/5), 6-7 (6/8), 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, as broadcast by AFP, Wednesday (5/31).
The defeat was Medvedev’s fifth to lose in the opening round of Roland Garros in seven appearances.
“I’ve been eating clay since maybe the third game of the match, and I don’t like it. I don’t know if people like to eat clay, there’s clay in their bags, in their shoes, in socks, white socks, you can throw them in the trash after the clay season.”
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“Maybe some people like it. I don’t. I’m happy to finish it,” said Medvedev, who arrived in Paris having won his first clay-court title at the Italian Open last week for his fifth trophy in 2023.
Seyboth Wild fired 69 winners past the Russian. Had he not squandered two set points in the second set, he could have finished the match sooner than the four hours and 15 minutes it took to play out the tie.
Seyboth Wild had previously played only one match at a Grand Slam in the US Open in 2020. Apart from that brief highlight, he has tried and failed eight times to qualify for a Grand Slam.
Medvedev believes the 23-year-old can use his first win in a Grand Slam match as a motivational trigger going forward.
“If she keeps playing like that, I think, the end of the year, she’s in the top 30,” Medvedev said.
