American Learner Tien upsets Daniil Medvedev at Australian Open - ESPN

MELBOURNE, Australia — Learner Tien, a 19-year-old qualifier from California, became the youngest American man to reach the Australian Open's third round since Pete Sampras in 1990, upsetting a racket-tossing Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (8), 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) in a match that began Thursday night and ended in the wee hours of Friday.

The 4-hour, 49-minute contest had a bit of everything, including — hard to believe — a six-minute rain delay that interrupted play shortly before 2:30 a.m. with Tien serving at 5-all, 15-all in the fifth set. When they resumed, Medvedev broke and served for the victory at 6-5, but Tien wouldn't cede a thing, broke back, and forced the concluding first-to-10 tiebreaker that he emerged to win shortly before 3 a.m., about two hours after he failed to convert his initial match point.

«Belief is a big thing in succeeding and winning, in general. I always go on the court believing that there's a chance I can win,» said Tien, who showed up at his news conference toting a white cardboard box with a pepperoni pizza. «I wasn't trying to think of the match as anything more important than any other match I've ever played. I was just going to go out there, have fun, see what I could do.»

As for the postmatch snack, he said, «It was either going to be celebratory or a binge-y, like, cope. It feels better it's more celebratory, for sure.»

The outcome was eyebrow-raising because of the wide gulf in experience and accomplishments between the two players at Margaret Court Arena. Tien is ranked 121st and owned a career Grand Slam record of 0-3 before this week; Medvedev was seeded No. 5, won the 2021 US Open and was the runner-up at Melbourne Park in three of the past four years, including 12 months ago.

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