Daniil Medvedev’s emotional confession reveals ‘the kid stopped dreaming’ in Australian Open final

Daniil Medvedev has opened up on the damaging extent of his shock loss from two sets up in the Australian Open final amid another run-in with “disrespectful” fans.

The Russian world No.2 was just one break point and two games away from winning his second grand slam before Rafael Nadal staged an epic fightback to win his 21st major title.

Upstart rival versus legendary fan favourite produced a one-sided crowd but two weeks of angst in Medvedev’s matches spilled over in his press conference - as you can watch in the video above.

Medvedev had a running battle with the chair umpire about “idiots” inside Rod Laver Arena on Sunday night while also taking on the ballkids for how they handled his service games.

By the time he faced the media in the early hours of Monday morning, the 25-year-old was ready to speak up.

“It’s going to be a little bit of a new press conference because I’m going to start with a short or long - I don’t know, I’ll try to keep it short - story of a young kid who dreamed about big things in tennis,” he began.

Medvedev spoke of picking up a racquet at six years old and, by the time he was 12, becoming immersed in his dream of being a grand slam champion.

“There are a few moments in my career where this kid is doubting whether he should continue to dream about these big things or not,” he said.

He remembered losing at the French Open early in his rise and arriving at the press conference to see just one Russian journalist in the room.

Another loss at Roland Garros left him frustrated with the crowd and again there were few people in the press conference.

“Again, the kid was doubting of dreaming big,” a smiling Medvedev said.

“I’m just talking about a few moments where the kid stopped dreaming, and today