Captain snooze vows ‘to give everything’ after 3.37am finish

Daniil Medvedev’s win was no yawn but will it scupper his chances of making it through to the fourth round.

Daniil Medvedev celebrates after his late-night victory against Finland's Emil Ruusuvuori Picture: AFP

Daniil Medvedev? Overnight sensation. He played terribly on Thursday evening but came good on Friday morning.

Won at 3.37am. For captain snooze to receive the full 48-hour rest between matches, he should’ve been scheduled for a 4am start on Sunday. Didn’t happen. Sometimes a bloke just ­cannot take a trick.

Players struggle to sleep during the Australian Open because they’re thinking about a match. Medvedev couldn’t get any shut-eye because he was playing one. All bonkers, but part of the ­tournament. A polarising figure, he’ll be chillin’ like a villain before ­facing Canadian Felix Auger-­Aliassime on Saturday.

How to back up? Suck it up. Late finishes cannot be helped at the Australian Open. You need two singles matches in a night session to keep the TV broadcasters happy and give ticket holders some bang for their buck. If the women’s match has, oh I don’t know, a never-ending, history-making 42-point tie-breaker at the end of the third set and then, oh I don’t know, a five-set men’s match, you’re going to be pulling the graveyard shift. It’s unavoidable. The players know it.

Medvedev posted a photo of his watch at nearly 4.30am on Friday with a laughing-crying emoji and the caption, “It’s late!” He reckoned he would be in the land of Nod about the same time as the ravers heading home from Melbourne’s nightclubs. About 6am. “I will try to give my everything,” he said of the Aliassime match. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

You wouldn’t have blamed him for taking a nap at the changes of ends. Unfurling a sleeping bag and staying the night on Rod Laver Arena. A fair smattering of spectators stayed until the end: milkmen, paperboys, dawn-patrol surfers, I assume. His 3-6 6-7 (1), 6-4 7-6 (1) 6-0 win over Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori was anything but a yawn. At least it wasn’t a school night for the ball kids. “Game, set, match, go to bed,” the umpire should have said.

“This one will stick in the memory,” Medvedev told the crowd. “What time is it? Honestly guys, I would not be here. Thanks for staying. If I’d have been a tennis fan and I had come, at 1am I’d be ‘OK, let’s go home, we’ll catch the end of the match on the TV. We’ll watch 30 minutes and then go to bed. So I guess, thanks guys, you are strong. Strong!”

Captain snooze will have to be strong – strong! – against the big-hitting, athletic, fresh-as-a-Canadian-mapleleaf Aliassime. When Lleyton Hewitt beat Marcos Baghdatis at 4.34am at the Australian Open in 2008, he was beaten in straight sets in the next round by Novak Djokovic – a gangly Serb who was yet to win a major and given his fickle temperament, probably never would.

When Andy Murray beat Thanasi Kokkinakis at 4.05am last year, he was put to sleep in four sets by Roberto Bautista Agut the following night.

“It’s a very obvious thing that needs to change,” Murray said. “I haven’t heard anyone really disagree with that. Just probably looks a wee bit more professional if you’re not finishing at three, four in the morning.”

The exception to late-night finishes leading to disoriented, discombobulated losses is Carlos Alcaraz at the 2022 US Open. He won a thriller against Jannik Sinner at 2.50am but then again, it was New York City and the night was but a pup. He went on to win the title. Medvedev is a fighter and scrapper and thinker and conniver and he’ll probably revel in the adversity.

Captain snooze is cast as the unscrupulous bad guy in the Netflix documentary, Break Point, The world No. 3 wants to put that reputation to bed. He wasn’t interviewed for the program and hasn’t watched. He understands he’s not exactly portrayed in a glowing light.

“I saw a little bit here and there but I didn’t watch it and probably will not because I’ll get frustrated,“ he said with a grin.

“I heard a little bit but I don’t have much to say. That’s how Netflix is, and that’s why we love it, because it exaggerates things. It’s usually hot and cold, there is no neutral. It is not real life. People around me, people in the locker room, they know how I am. How I am on court, which can be tricky. How I am off court. I feel like I have a good relationship with most on the tour.”