19-year-old American sensation, Learner Tien is having a dream run at the ongoing Australian Open. Minutes ago, he caused the biggest upset of the tournament, defeating the fifth seed, Daniil Medvedev in grueling five sets. In a match lasting nearly five hours on the Margaret Court Arena, Tien got the better of his Russian opponent 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (8), 1-6, 7-6 (10-7). While most of the sets were closely fought, Medvedev won the fourth set comfortably 6-1. After the match, Tien went on to explain what led to the fourth-set debacle.

During the post-match interview, he stated a bizarre reason for not performing to his standards in the fourth set. Tien said, “Honestly, in the 4 set I just had to pee so bad, I was trying to finish it up pretty quick and wanted to serve first in the 5th set. In the end it all worked out.”

Subsequently, the stadium erupted into laughter after finding out why Tien gave up the fourth set without much fight. However, all’s well that ends well and the American sensation came back strongly to win the biggest match of his career thus far.

Interestingly, Tien could’ve wrapped up things much more quickly after taking a 2-set lead. However, he let Medvedev make a comeback and the match eventually went right to the distance, with Tien winning the match-tiebreaker to create a huge upset.

Speaking after the match, Tien also added, “I was definitely hoping it wouldn’t go to a fifth-set breaker, [but I’m] just really happy to get a win. I know I made it a lot harder than maybe it could have been, but… you know, whatever.”

However, the match had no shortage of drama as Medvedev’s antics on the court continued. The Russian star committed a massive blunder in the match and lost his temper.

Daniil Medvedev loses his cool after a big mistake against Learner Tien

During the third-set tiebreaker, Medvedev was up a mini-break early in the tiebreaker. However, he squandered the chance to surge ahead on his serve, committing two back-to-back foot faults, a rarity in tennis. As a result, he lost the mini-break and lost his temper subsequently, screaming at the line judge.

Further, he was also handed a code violation and a point penalty, which put him in a huge spot of bother in the third set. Eventually, Medvedev went on to win the tiebreaker to save himself from a straight-set defeat.

The Russian star has already become a talking point at the tournament after he broke a camera in his first-round match. During an interview, Boris Becker said, “But that’s how we know him. He’s a hothead. It’s very entertaining for us, but not good for the tournament. I’m curious to see how much of a fine he’ll have to pay.”

In the end, it was a disappointing exit for Medvedev, having given his all against Tien but losing the closely fought match tiebreaker to bow out of the tournament. Meanwhile, Tien will face Corentin Moutet in the third round. With this Tien has become the youngest American man to reach the Australian Open’s third round since Pete Sampras in 1990.