Australia’s Alex de Minaur has run Daniil Medvedev off the court in an upset win at Roland-Garros to qualify for his second grand slam quarter-final.

The Australian appeared to yell out “I love the clay” after a Medvedev double fault sealed the match 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 – a surprising declaration for a man who minutes later admitted it hadn’t been his favourite surface in the past.

The 11th seed will now play world No.4 Alexander Zverev in the semis.

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It’s his best performance in Paris by a distance, best grand slam result since his 2020 US Open quarter-final loss to Dominic Thiem and the best Australian men’s performance at Roland-Garros since Lleyton Hewitt 20 years ago.

An ecstatic de Minaur delighted local fans by conducting the on-court post-match interview in French.

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“It was an amazing atmosphere for me,” he said.

“I was never expecting to be in the quarter-final in Roland-Garros because me, on clay, I never played very well in past years.”

The 25-year-old, who also speaks Spanish, said he was “very very happy” with the win.

“Against Daniil, it’s always a very tactical game,” he said.

“Because the two of us, we really defend very well, so we have to try to change a little bit the pace on the ball.”

De Minaur dropped the opening set and showed some brief signs of frustration – including a spat with the chair umpire – but managed to regain his composure heading into the second.

From there, the Aussie took complete control and won six games in a row to close out the set as Medvedev’s poor serving came back to haunt him.

The third set was more of the same as Medvedev – who received medical treatment for a foot injury in the second – looked completely uncomfortable.

De Minaur broke the Russian in the opening game of the fourth to keep the momentum going but Medevedev broke back immediately. 

But it was the briefest of fightbacks. The final set went on serve until the Australian served out the eighth game to love to go up 5-3.

He then capitalised on both an unlucky net cord from Medvedev and the fifth seed’s final-point double fault to close out the match in two hours and 49 minutes.

– Reported with Anna Pavlou