{"id":666900,"date":"2026-05-26T22:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/666900\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T22:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:56:12","slug":"french-open-daniil-medvedev-notoriously-plagued-by-clay-again-upset-in-first-round-this-time-by-adam-walton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/666900\/","title":{"rendered":"French Open: Daniil Medvedev, notoriously plagued by clay, again upset in first round, this time by Adam Walton"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week and a half after Russian Daniil Medvedev gave world No. 1 Jannik Sinner a run for his money in the semifinals of the Italian Open<\/a>, his struggles on clay returned. Medvedev fell victim to another upset on the surface, as he bowed out of the French Open in a first-round defeat for the second year in a row and third time in the past four seasons.<\/p>\n

Seeded No. 6 at Roland-Garros, the 30-year-old Medvedev lost a grueling, five-set match to Australian Adam Walton, who collected his first win over a top-10 opponent with a 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 victory on Tuesday after three-and-a-half hours in punishing Paris heat.<\/p>\n

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Walton received a wild-card invitation to play in the Grand Slam and came in 97th in the ATP rankings<\/a>. He\u2019ll face American Zachary Svajda in the second round on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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At the podium, Medvedev didn\u2019t blame the bubbling temperatures, which were reportedly forecast to reach at least 90 degrees, for his Jekyll and Hyde play. That said, he conceded that heat like that does affect the surface. It\u2019s known, after all, that when clay dries out more quickly, it makes for a faster-playing court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I don’t want to find excuses,\u201d said Medvedev, a former world No. 1 who most notably won the US Open in 2021.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI know why I don’t really play always my best in Roland-Garros, but if I say it, it’s excuses. So I keep it to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medvedev wasn\u2019t defensive during his post-match news conference<\/a>. He accepted the loss and shared some insight behind the up-and-down nature of the day and, more generally, his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery tournament has a different court, different balls, different … what else?\u201d Medvedev said. \u201cI mean, I can be different every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing an example, Medvedev noted how he isn\u2019t much of a morning person and typically plays worse when he has to get up early. On Tuesday, he and Walton played the first match of the day on Court Suzanne Lenglen.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn tennis, you need to adapt to the things, and sometimes I’m not good enough to adapt to it, and sometimes I am,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd that’s basically all I can tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

A reporter followed up, respectfully suggesting that Medvedev \u2014 the runner-up at the Australian Open in 2021, 2022 and 2024 \u2014 was selling himself short.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy tennis depends on a couple of things that I cannot control, meaning, if the ball doesn’t go, I don’t have the power to make it go,\u201d Medvedev then explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, Jannik, it doesn’t matter. Ball doesn’t go, he hits it full power. The ball goes, he just makes a bit adjustment and doesn’t go full power. I go full power, and if the ball doesn’t go, it doesn’t go.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Despite acknowledging his deficiencies, Medvedev expressed confidence that he can play well in Grand Slams again and that he can fare better at Roland-Garros. When asked if he\u2019d ever consider skipping the tournament, he quickly shot down that idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no, no, no,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, unless I’m injured, of course. But no, I mean, even one time, I had this hernia injury, and I could’ve consider skipping it and prepare for Wimbledon … but no, I want to play Grand Slams.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI know that I’m in good shape, and I can play well in Roland-Garros as well. I can. It’s just tougher for me, and first rounds are usually tougher for me, but I will always come here. Maybe I should consider playing a tournament before, which I usually don’t do before Grand Slams, but, I mean, when it doesn’t work, why not? So that’s the only thing I will consider next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week and a half after Russian Daniil Medvedev gave world No. 1 Jannik Sinner a run for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[142909,26603,33366,99,428,291332],"class_list":["post-666900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-adam-walton","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-roland-garros","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-thomas-samson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666900","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=666900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}