John Isner unimpressed with 3:40 am finish to Daniil Medvedev's 2R Australian Open match, believes Russian is well equipped to recover quickly

John Isner has expressed his displeasure at tennis matches finishing late in the night following Daniil Medvedev's second-round win at the 2024 Australian Open.

On Thursday, January 18, Medvedev came back from two sets down to 3-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-6(1), 6-0 against Emil Ruusuvuori. The nail-biting contest, which lasted four hours and 23 minutes at the Rod Laver Arena, ended at 3:40 a.m. local time.

After the match, Medvedev stated that he will forever remember the match for the result and the late finish.

"It was tough. I think the only two matches when I went two-sets-to-love down and won, it was here, on this court. So that’s a good memory for sure. This one is for sure going to stay in my memory, at 3:40 in the morning," the Russian said in his on-court interview.

Former American tennis pro Isner took to social media after the match and opined that players should not be forced to play so late at night.

"No one should be playing tennis at 330am. This is looney tunes," he said in a post on X.

The 38-year-old explained that a late finish meant players' recovery gets compromised.

"The recovery for both players is completely compromised. Especially tough for the loser once the adrenaline leaves their body," he added.

However, Isner opined that the one person well-equipped to deal with such late finishes was Medvedev.

"I will say this, Medvedev is prob the one person a finish like this will affect the least," he said.

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Daniil Medvedev: "The thing with tennis, you never know when you have to eat, when you have to warm up"

Long matches and late-night finishes are not uncommon in tennis, and there was an example of both at the 2024 Australian Open.

On the women's side, Anna Blinkova beat last year's runner-up Elena Rybakina 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(20) in the second round, with the match featuring the longest singles match-tiebreak (42 points) in Grand Slam history.

With Dannil Medvedev and Emil Ruusuvuori scheduled to play after Blinkova and Rybakina at the Rod Laver Arena, it meant the men had to wait longer than expected before they could take to the court.

Medvedev later admitted that the women's match had an impact on him as he had to warm up multiple times before he took to the court, meaning he was exhausted even before his contest began.

"Actually very tough [to prepare for such a late start]. The toughest was the tie-breaker the women played, 35 minutes or something like this. And so the thing with tennis, you never know when you have to eat, when you have to warm up," he said.

"And so here it was too early because I thought the match is going to be faster. The tie-break is going to be faster, so I was on the warm-up. You warm up five minutes, you rest five minutes but you stay. So when I went on the court I was a little bit exhausted already. It's not easy," Medvedev added.

Medvedev, who now holds a 23-7 win-loss record at the Melbourne Major, will next face 27th seed Felix Auger-Aliassime on Saturday, January 20.