It was a pair of performances befitting of his Marinko Matosevic’s “Mad Dog” moniker.
The Australian world No.58 produced one of the biggest wins of his career to upset 18th seed Fernando Verdasco in the first round at Wimbledon on Monday.
As only the colourful Matosevic could, he then followed it up with bizarre press conference appearance in which he was short, flat and seemingly struggling to stay awake.
After breaking his long-standing grand slam duck at last month’s French Open, Matosevic backed it up with an impressive 6-4 4-6 6-4 6-2 win at the All England Club to reach round two for a second successive major.
The 28-year-old was clearly elated with the win, raising his arms in delight, but he seemed in no mood to discuss it an hour later.
“I did what I needed to do to win. It was a good win,” an almost disinterested Matosevic said of the stellar win.
Right.
How satisfying then is it to follow through with your plan to take an attacking game to the Spaniard?
“Yeah, just playing grass court tennis, and, yeah, it was a good win out there.”
Impossible to mistake Matosevic’s flatness, one reporter asked if the win had drained him.
“No. It was fine out there. It was like … what was I going to say? What was the question again?”
A more direct question followed: `Are you alright at the moment, Marinko?’
“No, I’m fine. Just had a nice shower and good stretch. I feel a little bit sleepy actually,” he said.
Right.
Matosevic went on to elaborate slightly more on the win, which set up a second-round showdown with Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.
He paid tribute to the impact of his coach Mark Woodforde, who has encouraged him to embrace a serve-and-volley “play to win” approach on the grass.
A small but vocal Australian contingent in the crowd cheered Matosevic on, yelling “come on Mad Dog!”.
Matosevic had labelled the nickname “stupid” during the Australian summer because it wasn’t his name and was made up by “some idiot on Wikipedia”.
Asked whether he had now warmed to the tag, Matosevic sounded almost as if reading a prepared statement.
“Very happy to take the support from any fan out there,” he said.
Woodforde put Matosevic’s post-match performance down to “crashing” physically and mentally after the high of his win.
“He’s definitely excited with the win. He’s ecstatic,” doubles legend Woodforde said.
“I said to him afterwards, `rejoice and revel in this win, you should, but keep your head down because there’s more to come’.”
Matosevic last month defeated German Dustin Brown at Roland Garros to notch up his first grand slam match win in 13 attempts.
He was easily accounted for by Andy Murray in the next round but spoke of being “freed” by the result and kicked on with an impressive run on grass, including wins over Jo Wilfried-Tsonga and Marin Cilic at Queen’s Club.
