Daniil Medvedev warns ‘one player is going to die’ in ‘brutal’ US Open conditions

Ewan West
Daniil Medvedev
Daniil Medvedev cools off courtside

Daniil Medvedev warned a player is “going to die” due to the brutal conditions at the 2023 US Open during his quarter-final win over Andrey Rublev.

The world No 3 later discussed the difficulty of playing in the extreme heat and humidity and suggested it could have been “dangerous” if the match had gone five sets.

Medvedev overcame his close friend and compatriot Rublev 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 in a tough last eight contest played during the day on Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.

Both players were clearly struggling greatly with the conditions throughout the match, with Medvedev calling for the doctor at one stage. The 2021 US Open champion revealed after previous matches at the event he had been having trouble with his breathing.

The 27-year-old recovered from being a break down in all three sets and sealed the victory on his fifth match point in a gruelling final game. He has now won six of his eight tour-level clashes with Rublev.

During a pause between games in the match, Medvedev made a grave prediction about the conditions while looking down the lens of a courtside camera.

“One player is gonna die and they’re gonna see,” said the world No 3.

In his post-match press conference, the Russian addressed how challenging the encounter had been for both competitors.

“Yeah, tough, because I could talk a lot, brutal conditions for both of us. I mean, I don’t know if it could be seen through the camera, because we are sweating so much and use a lot of towels,” explained Medvedev.

“I have no skin left on my nose here, and, like, here it’s red, but it’s not because of the sun so it’s not like you’re burned but I have no skin left. I just saw Andrey in the locker room and his face very red, and it’s also not because of the sun so I guess it’s the same. That tells everything, like we left everything out there.

“The thing is that even if it would go further I think we would still leave even more. Then I don’t think I had anything left but if the match would go on I would find something more. And the only thing that is a little bit, let’s call it dangerous, is that the question is how far could we go?

“Maybe we could go five sets and it would be – when I say ‘fine’, yeah, we would struggle a little bit next day and it would be fine, or we have a person in Yibing Wu who fell down and in Washington could be hot. That’s a question, yeah, that’s a question mark.”

The 27-year-old admitted he has no easy solutions to the issue but stressed the importance of bringing attention to it.

“The thing is that I’m not sure what can we do. Because probably we cannot stop the tournament for four days because it’s been what, three, four days it’s been brutal like this, because then it basically ruins everything, the TV, even the tickets, everything. It ruins everything,” continued Medvedev.

“So I don’t think this could be done. Could we go to three sets when the conditions are like this? Also some guys are not going to be happy, no. You lose the first two sets and the match is done and you’re, like, Damn I wanted to come back.

“And at the same time I’m telling because maybe I’m going to finish my career and nothing is gonna happen and then it’s fine, then I’m talking for nothing, but the question is we don’t want something to happen and then say, Oh, my God, Medvedev said this a couple of years ago.’

“But I don’t have the solution, because even if we say let’s play all the matches at night maybe on different stadiums, we saw Sinner-Zverev, they were not much better than us today with Andrey just because even at night New York can be really hot and humid.

“I don’t have real solutions but it’s still better to speak a little bit about it before something happens. It’s always better.”

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