{"id":478676,"date":"2026-02-19T22:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/478676\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T22:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:26:14","slug":"daniil-medvedev-stefanos-tsitsipas-and-how-a-tennis-rivalry-full-of-needle-grew-weary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/478676\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and how a tennis rivalry full of needle grew weary"},"content":{"rendered":"

In front of a sparse crowd for a second-round match at the Qatar Open<\/a> in Doha on Wednesday, the rivalry between Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a> and Daniil Medvedev<\/a> entered its third age.<\/p>\n

Once a riveting aggro-fest between two of the game\u2019s rising stars, and then a compelling, but more respectful duel between two top-ranked players, it is now altogether less consequential. Many tennis rivalries can become disappointingly one-sided or fade into irrelevance as the players involved enter their late careers.<\/p>\n

Medvedev and Tsitsipas, who both endured relatively miserable 2025 seasons that confirmed their distance from the sport\u2019s biggest prizes, now meet as emblems of a sport passing them by, at first very slowly and then all at once.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Medvedev won the 2021 U.S. Open, and claimed the world No. 1 ranking soon after. Tsitsipas has reached two Grand Slam finals \u2014 at the 2021 French Open and the 2023 Australian Open \u2014 losing both to Novak Djokovic<\/a>, the first from two sets up. In the next few years, Djokovic\u2019s longevity and the emergence of Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner<\/a> lowered their ceilings, before last season arrived to cave them in.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Medvedev won just one Grand Slam match, sliding down the rankings from No. 5 to No. 18, before a late surge pushed him to just outside the top 10. Shoulder and hernia issues appeared to rob Medvedev\u2019s once-formidable serve of its potency, and he lost control of his occasionally combustible \u2014 but usually watchful \u2014 personality.<\/p>\n

After a first-round exit against France\u2019s Benjamin Bonzi at the U.S. Open<\/a>, where Medvedev\u2019s conduct in whipping up the crowd and turning on umpire Greg Allensworth earned him a $42,500 fine<\/a>, Medvedev split with his coach of the previous eight years, Gilles Cervara. After an upsurge under new coaches Thomas Johansson and Rohan Goetzke, he has started 2026 railing at \u201cnot-round\u201d tennis balls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas had an even more tumultuous year. His ranking fell from No. 11 to No. 36, as he tried everything to rediscover his youthful brilliance. He switched rackets, hired Djokovic\u2019s former coach Goran Ivani\u0161evi\u0107, and then rehired his father, Apostolos, after an ill-fated two-month stint during which Ivani\u0161evi\u0107 publicly criticized his new player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never seen such an unprepared player in my life,\u201d Ivani\u0161evi\u0107 told SportKlub last July. \u201cMe, at my age and with this bad knee, I\u2019m three times in better shape than him.\u201d<\/p>\n

A back injury, partly aggravated by his change of racket, hampered Tsitsipas all year. A feisty five-set loss to Daniel Altmaier at the U.S. Open left him unable to walk for a couple of days.<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas\u2019 body is better now, and in beating Medvedev 6-3, 6-4 Wednesday, he produced his best win by ranking since the middle of 2024. Medvedev was disappointingly flat, hitting double faults at key moments and sarcastically admonishing himself and his team. But even that wasn\u2019t done with the conviction or relish that for so long made Medvedev tennis\u2019 favorite anti-hero.<\/p>\n

There was a time when Medvedev vs. Tsitsipas was a defining rivalry on the ATP Tour, first for angst and then more so for tennis. It earned its own Wikipedia page (now marked for deletion): Medvedev, the straight-talking disruptor with a huge serve and a jarring, impenetrable game that would partly redefine baseline tennis, against Tsitsipas, the misty-eyed, would-be philosopher with a classically refined one-handed backhand and penchant for the spectacular.<\/p>\n

Their intensity initially belied their on-court status. Both players were outside the top 50 for their first meeting at the 2018 Miami Open, a match that produced some of the seminal beef in recent tennis history. Medvedev confronted his opponent at the end of a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 win, after Tsitsipas had taken a five-minute \u201cemergency bathroom break\u201d during the decider, before failing to apologize for a mid-rally net cord.<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas muttered the phrase \u201cbull\u2014- Russian,\u201d prompting Medvedev to deliver one of the immortal lines: \u201cYou better shut your f\u2014 up, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey Stefanos, you wanna look at me and talk?\u201d Medvedev went on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI answer him because he doesn\u2019t know how to fight. He is a small kid who doesn\u2019t know how to fight.\u201d After the umpire intervened and Tsitsipas left the court, Medvedev said: \u201cIf he doesn\u2019t say anything, I have no problem with him but if he says something to me and he wants to fight, he needs to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat (match) felt very wrong, the overall ambience,\u201d Tsitsipas told the No Challenges Remaining podcast in 2021. \u201cIt didn\u2019t belong to tennis. It felt like an MMA (mixed martial arts) fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the 2019 ATP Finals, Tsitsipas said of the match: \u200b\u200b\u201cI did get pissed and said what I said, which I do regret, but at the time, I was very frustrated that things happened this way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that I hate him. As he said, we will not go to dinner together.\u201d<\/p>\n

After beating Tsitsipas again at the 2018 U.S. Open, Medvedev referenced the \u201cstrange\u201d fact that his rival had blocked him on Instagram. After winning their third match that year at the Basel Open, Medvedev celebrated exuberantly. Following a no-look handshake from Tsitsipas, Medvedev posted on Instagram: \u201cOoops, I did it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Medvedev made it five wins out of five against Tsitsipas at the Shanghai Masters in 2019, the then-21-year-old Greek didn\u2019t hold back in his post-match news conference when asked what it was like playing Medvedev. \u201cI don\u2019t mean to be rude at all, but it\u2019s just boring. It\u2019s boring. It\u2019s so boring that \u2014 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate myself for putting myself into that situation where I have to play in his own terms and not in my terms. And that\u2019s reminding me of my childhood, when I was 12 years old, playing inside the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he has a huge serve, and if you manage to get it back, it\u2019s just countless balls inside the court. You have to hit as hard as you can side to side, be accurate, and make him move.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medvedev said soon after that he had \u201cstopped taking Tsitsipas seriously.\u201d Alexander Zverev, another peer and rival, said at the time that Medvedev and Tsitsipas had \u201ca weird relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Tsitsipas finally secured a win over Medvedev, at the ATP Tour Finals a month later, he celebrated as if he had won the title. In his on-court interview, Tsitsipas said, \u201cIt was one of the most important victories of my career.\u201d He added in a news conference: \u201cIt means more than extra. It\u2019s a victory that I craved for a long time now, and it\u2019s great that I came in at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, Medvedev and Tsitsipas had emerged as serious players at the top of the game. They were seen as likely successors to the Big Three of Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic<\/a>, who were thought to be coming towards the end of their careers.<\/p>\n

Their next meeting came on one of tennis\u2019 biggest stages: An Australian Open semifinal on Rod Laver Arena in 2021. The pair were respectful in the leadup, as had become the case as their rivalry developed, with Tsitsipas rowing back on his \u201cboring\u201d comments from a couple of years earlier.<\/p>\n

Medvedev came through in straight sets, before winning again at the same stage, on the same court, 12 months later. Medvedev was the reigning U.S. Open champion and world No. 2; Tsitsipas was world No. 4. This time, the aggro returned. Enraged by Tsitsipas\u2019 father\u2019s frequent talking between points, Medvedev called umpire Jaume Campistol a \u201csmall cat\u201d for his alleged failure to enforce the rules.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Medvedev had said, \u201cHis father can talk every point? Bro, are you stupid? His father can talk every point?! Can his father talk every point?!\u201d<\/p>\n

In a news conference afterwards, Tsitsipas said, \u201cI don\u2019t pay attention to the stuff. Players like to do this stuff to throw you off mentally \u2014 could be maybe a tactic. It\u2019s all right. He\u2019s not the most mature person anyways.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Tsitsipas beat Medvedev seven months later at the 2022 Cincinnati Open, he celebrated with a dance that Medvedev pointedly repeated when winning a rematch at the Italian Open the following year. In between times, Medvedev had stuck up for close friend Andrey Rublev after Tsitsipas had said after losing to the Russian at the 2022 ATP Finals that: \u201cI feel like the better player. He prevailed with the few tools that he has. He was able to really take advantage of them and win today.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Medvedev beat Rublev to win the Dubai Tennis Championships in March 2023, he said in his on-court interview: \u201cNot long ago, one player said that he (Rublev) has just a few weapons, and I was reading this and I was like, \u2018How can you say this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrey is one of the most skilful players on the tour, he just didn\u2019t fully exploit his potential, but I\u2019m sure that he can win Grand Slams, hopefully he can beat this guy who said it, many, many times, and I wish this for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas had apologized a few months earlier for those comments, which Rublev accepted.<\/p>\n

By the time Tsitsipas and Medvedev were teammates at the 2024 Laver Cup for Team Europe, the old foes were playing down their rivalry.<\/p>\n

And so to Wednesday. There was no needle when the players met at the net at the end of this one, just weary resignation from Medvedev that another match like this had gone against him.<\/p>\n

Tsitsipas will play the No. 5 seed Rublev in the quarterfinals, before a possible semi against Alcaraz, the world No. 1. Tsitsipas would be a major underdog, against a player who has rendered all rivalries \u2014 other than his own with Sinner \u2014 largely irrelevant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His and Medvedev\u2019s feud may have entered the d\u00e9tente stage \u2014 this 76-minute clash was far from a classic \u2014 but it was an important win for Tsitsipas, even if it only served to emphasize how far away their rivalry is from having any real meaning, interpersonal or otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In front of a sparse crowd for a second-round match at the Qatar Open in Doha on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-478676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}