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Switzerland’s Wawrinka stops Russian star Medvedev in Round 4 of 2020 Australian Open

This was Medvedev’s 4th appearance at the Australian Open tournaments

Stan Wawrinka AP Photo/Andy Brownbill

Stan Wawrinka

© AP Photo/Andy Brownbill

MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev lost on Monday to Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka in a five-set thriller for the spot in the quarterfinals stage of this year’s opening Grand Slam series tournament, the 2020 Australian Open.

In their Round 4 encounter, which lasted 3 hours and 25 minutes, the 34-year-old Swiss (seed-15) defeated his 23-year-old opponent from Russia (seed-4) with the final score of 6-2; 2-6; 4-6; 7-6 (7-2); 6-2.

This was their 3rd career head-to-head encounter and in the previous two meetings Medvedev defeated Wawrinka.

"Really tough to play against Daniil," the official website of the tennis tournament quoted Wawrinka as saying after the match. "I was not playing with confidence in the second and third sets, and I had to fight against myself to play a little bit against my game."

"But I knew it was coming. I had to fight, to stay with it, stay positive and, yeah, I'm happy with it," he added.

The Swiss player, who is currently rated 15th in the ATP Rankings, is now set to play in the quarterfinals against the winner of the match between Russia’s Andrey Rublev and Germany’s Alexander Zverev.

This was Medvedev’s 4th appearance at the Australian Open tournaments. He failed to clear 1st round in 2017, reached 2nd round the following year and was stopped in Round 4 last year.

Medvedev enjoyed a breakthrough season last year as he won two tournaments of the Masters series (in Cincinnati and Shanghai), as well as ATP tournaments in Saint Petersburg and Sofia. Moreover, he was the finalist of the US Open, Masters series tournament in Montreal and ATP tournaments in Washington, Barcelona and Brisbane.

The Russian player hit the international media headlines last summer with his maiden Grand Slam final appearance at the US Open, losing a dramatic five-set thriller to Spain’s Rafael Nadal.

The 2020 Australian Open tournament is played on the courts of Melbourne Park between January 20 and February 2 and has $49.1 million in prize money up for grabs. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and Japan’s Naomi Osaka are the 2020 Australian Open defending champions in the men and women’s singles respectively.

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