American qualifier Learner Tien stuns Daniil Medvedev in late-night epic

MELBOURNE – Inspired American teenager Learner Tien outlasted three-time Australian Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev to reach the third round with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (8-10), 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) victory in a late-night epic on Jan 16.

Qualifier Tien’s chances seemed to be fading after the fifth seed saved a match point with an ace in the third-set tiebreak and stormed back to set up a decider on Margaret Court Arena.

But the 19-year-old tapped into his last reserves of energy to become the youngest American man to reach the third round of the Australian Open since Pete Sampras did so aged 18 in 1990.

Medvedev looked the clear favourite in the decider, with Tien clearly fatigued but the world No. 121 stayed with the Russian in a series of gruelling rallies.

After a brief rain delay and with the clock approaching 3am, Medvedev served for the match at 6-5, but Tien refused to surrender and broke back to send the contest into a first-to-10 deciding tiebreak.

Medvedev led 6-4, but Tien stormed back to claim a sensational victory as a weary Medvedev floated a return over the baseline to bring the near five-hour tussle to an end. He will meet Frenchman Corentin Moutet next.

Left-hander Tien, who was born in California to Vietnamese parents, said: “I was definitely hoping it wouldn’t go to a fifth-set breaker, but I’m just happy to get a win. I know I made it a lot harder than maybe it could have been...”

Asked whether he had deliberately handed up the fourth set to save energy, Tien said: “Honestly, in the fourth set, I just had to pee so bad, so I was trying to finish it up fairly quick.

“But I also wanted to start the fifth serving, so I scrapped that game at 0-5, and it all worked out.”

Tien, whose given name Learner was inspired by his mother’s mathematics teacher profession, had reached the final of December’s Next Gen ATP Finals, where he lost to Joao Fonseca of Brazil.

Fonseca, 18, who stunned ninth seed Andrey Rublev in straight sets in the first round in Melbourne, lost 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego.

Sonego’s reward is a clash against Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan, who took down 17th seed Frances Tiafoe in five sets.

Earlier, world No. 1 Jannik Sinner dropped a set for the first time in 14 matches, before surging back to keep his title defence on track.

The top seed had no answers at the start against Australian wild card Tristan Schoolkate, ranked 173rd, but found his groove to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 on centre court.

It was the Italian’s 16th consecutive victory in an ominous sign for his next opponent Marcos Giron in the third round.

The American punched his ticket by beating Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry, who was the last person before Schoolkate to take a set off Sinner.

That was back in October at the Shanghai Masters. Since then, Sinner had won 29 consecutive sets.

“It’s always tough to play against a player I don’t know very well,” he said. “I felt like he was serving really well, playing much better in the beginning than I was.

“But I am still very happy with my performance. You can never take things for granted so very glad to be in the next round. It was a very tough match. I can improve, yes.”

The 23-year-old, who is defending a Grand Slam title for the first time after his five-set win against Medvedev in the 2024 final, was out of sorts initially.

Schoolkate belied his ranking, going toe-to-toe in the first set and stunning Sinner by breaking to love at 5-4 when the Italian slammed a forehand into the net.

Sinner’s serve was not firing and he uncharacteristically committed eight unforced errors while hitting just six winners.

But he started to get the measure of his 23-year-old opponent, who is making his Australian Open debut, and broke to love with a forehand winner to take a 4-3 lead before serving out the second set.

Schoolkate’s resolve faded and a net winner from Sinner gave him an immediate break in the third set as he won four games in a row to take the match out of reach.

The fourth set was a formality with Sinner in the zone.

In another match, American Taylor Fritz swept through to a third-round clash against Gael Monfils with a brutal display of power hitting and has dropped just eight games in the tournament so far.

The fourth seed defeated Chilean qualifier Cristian Garin 6-2, 6-1, 6-0. AFP, REUTERS