Daniil Medvedev has requested Australian Open matches start an hour earlier in order to avoid extremely late finishes.<\/p>\n
Medvedev was one of the early casualties last year when he was defeated by Learner Tien in a match that did not end until 2:54am.<\/p>\n
That was not unusual occurrence either with Medvedev playing until 3:40am in 2024 and the record late finish was 4:34am between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis in 2004.<\/p>\n
Now, with the tournament a few weeks away from beginning, Medvedev has requested the opening match be brought forward an hour to start at 6pm in order to cut down on the late finishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not against playing at night, don\u2019t get me wrong, but starting the first match at 7pm is just asking for trouble,\u201d Medvedev said on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have one match of five sets, and both of them went for five for me, it is a bit too late to start at 7pm. They should be starting at 6pm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite never winning it, the Australian Open is a favourite of Medvedev who has reached the final on three occasions \u2013 2021, 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Having been eliminated in the second round last year, Medvedev has backed himself to beat anyone at the venue provided he plays his \u2018best tennis.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI like playing in the Australian Open, I feel like I can play good tennis there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve played some great matches. I know when I play my best tennis I am able to beat anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like generally to play on hard courts. The courts are pretty fast, so it suits me well.\u201d<\/p>\n
MORE NEWS ON T365<\/strong><\/p>\n Venus Williams set to break record as full Australian Open women\u2019s wildcard list confirmed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Novak Djokovic insider reveals retirement plan \u2013 and it won\u2019t be abrupt like Rafael Nadal\u2019s exit<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Medvedev also arrives in Melbourne with a new coach having hired Thomas Johansson in September.<\/p>\n Johansson\u2019s playing career was his surprise triumph at the 2002 Australian Open, making him the last Swedish player to win a Grand Slam singles title.<\/p>\n The 16th seed in Melbourne, Johansson battled past 26th seed Jiri Novak in the last four before a four-set victory over former world No 1 Marat Safin in the championship match.<\/p>\n The Swede reached a career-high of world No 7 in June 2002 and was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 2005, alongside reaching two US Open quarter-finals.<\/p>\n Medvedev meanwhile is looking to bounce back from a difficult 2025 that saw him end the year ranked 13th.<\/p>\n His preparation for Melbourne begins with the Brisbane International, a tournament he reached the final of in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cGreat memories from Brisbane. I like the city. I\u2019m happy to be back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cLast time I played here I made the final, so I am going to try and do better.\u201d<\/p>\n Read next: Emma Raducanu names 2026 goal ahead of first major tournament<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Daniil Medvedev says Australian Open \u2018asking for trouble\u2019 in rule change request<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daniil Medvedev has requested Australian Open matches start an hour earlier in order to avoid extremely late finishes. Medvedev was one of the early casualties last year when he was defeated by Learner Tien in a match that did not end until 2:54am. That was not unusual occurrence either with Medvedev playing until 3:40am in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}