Paris [France], May 31 : The World No 2 Daniil Medvedev was quick to credit his opponent, Thiago Seyboth Wild, after losing in the first round at the ongoing French Open 2023.
Seyboth Wild was making his debut in Paris but showed little sign of nerves while playing on Court Philippe Chatrier, swinging freely throughout the four-hour, 15-minute clash to upset the second seed 7-6(5), 6-7(6), 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.
"Tough match. I don't know. I'm not going to look at it back on TV but my feeling was that he played well. I don't think I played that badly, but he played well. The thing is that it's always the same. If he continues to play that way, in my opinion, end of the year, he's Top 30. But the last time I said something like this about someone, he didn't manage to do it. But great for him to play like this today," ATP.com quoted Medvedev as saying.
"For sure I'm really disappointed," Medvedev admitted in a crowded press conference. "I'm gonna be thinking about this match for a week, but for the moment I don't see anything wrong I did."
"I honestly hope he's going to play like this later on, because if not, I'm going to be disappointed. I'm going to be like, 'Why today? Why not in two days?'" he added.
Medvedev appeared to seize control after winning the third set 6-2 to establish a two-sets-to-one lead. But Seyboth Wild dominated the baseline exchanges, hitting 69 winners to win after five sets and four hours and fifteen minutes.
"For sure I'm really disappointed. I'm going to be [for] one week thinking about this match, but for the moment I don't see anything wrong I did. I mean, double faults, the wind was crazy today, so it was not easy... I don't see anything I could really do better. That's good. That's when you can bounce back faster in the next tournaments," Medvedev added.
The second seed had an outstanding clay-court season. He won his maiden surface victory a little more than a week ago, at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome. He is, nevertheless, content to leave the surface.
"It didn't change one time that every time it finishes I'm happy. So I'm happy. I'm happy again. Doesn't matter, one time quarters, one time fourth round, a lot of times first round," Medvedev said.
"Today I had because [of the] wind, dry court, I had a mouthful of clay since probably [the] third game of the match, and I don't like it. I don't know if people like to eat clay, to have clay in their bags, in their shoes, the socks, white socks, you can throw them to garbage after clay season. Maybe some people like it. I don't," the World No. 2 added.
"I am happy to have it finished. I'm going to have to have a good time off. Have to find positives. A lot of relaxing [in the] next days. Happy to go to the next challenges even if, for sure, I wanted to stay longer in Paris, even if it's clay," Medvedev said.
Medvedev will move forward with confidence knowing that despite his early loss in Paris, he found his footing on clay.
"Before sometimes I was feeling, 'Wow, I really cannot do anything.' Today I felt like I [was] doing what I had to do, and he played well, so let's continue. And, well, the match was over and I didn't manage to win it."
"But definitely amazing. Rome is unbelievable. I never thought I'm going to win a tournament on clay. Not talking about a Masters. So have to think more about this right now than Roland Garros, unfortunately," Medvedev said.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor