- Roland Garros Qualifying Draws and Schedule for Wednesday, May 18th
- Gael Monfils Withdraws from Roland Garros
- Roland Garros Qualifying Draws and Schedule for Tuesday, May 17th
- Roland Garros Qualifying Draws and Schedule for Monday, May 16th
- Djokovic builds momentum for French Open 2022 with sixth Rome Masters Tennis title
- Novak’s Back: Djokovic Beats Tsitsipas for Sixth Rome Crown
- Rome ATP and WTA Draws and Schedule for Sunday, May 15th
- Stefanos Tsitsipas Defeats Alexander Zverev to Reach Maiden Rome Final
- Iga Swiatek Scores 26th Straight Win, Sets up Rome Semifinal vs. Sabalenka
- Rome ATP and WTA Draws and Schedule for Saturday, May 14th
- Foot injury returns for Rafa Nadal in three-set loss to Shapovalov at Rome Masters tennis
- Rome ATP and WTA Draws and Schedule for Friday, May 13th
- Naomi Osaka Splits from IMG To Form New Management Firm
- Ricky’s picks for the Rome Tennis third round: Djokovic vs. Wawrinka and Nadal vs. Shapovalov
- Rome ATP and WTA Draws and Schedule for Thursday, May 12th
Survive and Advance: Medvedev Manages to Get Past Cressy’s serve-and-volley at Australian Open
- Updated: January 24, 2022

By Ricky Dimon
Maxime Cressy’s turn-back-the-clock serve-and-volley tactics have been confounding opponents left and right this season. Heading into the Australian Open, only Rafael Nadal had managed to solve it (in the Melbourne 250 final).
It took another Grand Slam champion to stop Cressy at the Australian Open.
And it wasn’t easy.
No. 2 seed and title favorite Daniil Medvedev needed three hours and 30 minutes to hold off Cressy 6-2, 7-6(40, 6-7(4), 7-5 during fourth-round action on Monday afternoon. Cressy fired 75 winners (15 more than Medvedev), including 41 via volleys or overheads and 18 with aces. Not until Medvedev came up with a rare successful forehand pass on break point to end a marathon game at 5-5 in the fourth set was the outcome assured.
The conclusion finally put Cressy out of his best-ever tournament, and put Medvedev out of his misery.
“This is so boring,” Medvedev sulked at one point during the fourth set when the momentum was swinging toward his opponent.
“It’s simply unbelievable how lucky he is getting,” the 25-year-old Russian seethed at another point. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole life.”
“This is my unluckiest day ever,” he was heard saying on another occasion.

In the end, after he had survived the nightmare that was the only true serve-and-volleyer on the ATP Tour, Medvedev was gracious at the net and full of praise in the press room.
“He really did [serve and volley] well,” the 2021 Aussie Open runner-up and U.S. Open champion admitted. “First set I had control, but the second set I didn’t manage to break him but won the tie-break and just wanted to continue this way. When I lost the third (set) and when I had eight break points in the fourth set, I was like, ‘come on.’ Some of them I could have won, but he played well. But on the last one I played well.
“To be honest, I agree it was a great match. During the match it got a little crazy, I think with myself.”
As we have seen in the past, a little bit of craziness may be just Medvedev needs to win another Grand Slam title.
Ricky contributes to10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.