Fifth seed Daniil Medvedev was being pushed so hard by Frenchman Alexandre Muller in their Wimbledon second-round clash on Wednesday that he completely lost track of the score.
After losing a point to trail 6-3 in a tiebreak, the Russian sat down in his courtside chair thinking he had already lost the opening set to his 102nd-ranked opponent.
He was then informed by the umpire that he was actually still alive in the first set. He returned to the baseline, only to lose the next point anyway and fall behind.
Despite losing that tiebreak it all turned out OK for Medvedev, as he rallied from a set down to win 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-4, 7-5 and reach the third round.
“I thought it was 6-4 (not 5-3), I went a little crazy,” Medvedev told reporters. “I thought the set was gone. I heard the referee talking to me. At one moment I start hearing, ‘Daniil, it’s 6-3, 6-3.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’
“Then I see the score. Don’t know if it ever happened to me before. Thought it was pretty funny. I thought in my head, ‘OK, maybe that’s my second chance to win it.’ Then I lost the point.”
It was a tough workout for Medvedev, who was extended well beyond three hours but was happy to survive.
Muller had clearly done his homework and chucked in the odd underarm serve with Medvedev standing to receive serve from his customary position, well behind the baseline.
“The first one you’re kind of surprised. But I was on to both serves and I could have done better,” he said. “I wanted to do one myself when I was serving for the match, maybe at 40-0, but I ran out of time.”
Reuters contributed to this report.