NEW YORK: Daniil Medvedev's strange way to celebrate his victory against world No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the US Open title has to do with his great off-court passion -- the soccer PlayStation game FIFA.
The moment the 25-year-old world No. 2 Russian won the battle against his Serbian rival 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, Medvedev fell to the floor on his side of the court and celebrated his maiden Grand Slam title.
Explaining his bizarre "dead fish" post-match celebration, Medvedev said on-court that, "Only legends will understand. What I did after the match was L2 + left."
Later in his post-match press conference, the Russian said the idea first arose during his run to the fourth round at Wimbledon this year. "When I was running through [the draw at] Wimbledon - I was really confident about my game. I think it was one night, you know, you cannot fall asleep. Five, 10 minutes you have crazy thoughts, like every other person," he said.
"I was like, OK, if I'm going to win Wimbledon, imagine I win it against Novak or whatever. To not celebrate is going to be too boring, because I do it all the time. I need to do something, but I want to make it special.
"I like to play FIFA. I like to play PlayStation. It's called the dead fish celebration. If you know your opponent when you play FIFA, many times you're going to do this. You're going to score a goal, you're up 5-0, you do this one.
"Yeah, I talked to the guys in the locker [room], they're young guys, super chill guys. They play FIFA. They were like, 'That's legendary'. Everybody who I saw who plays FIFA thinks that's legendary. That's how I wanted to make it. It's not easy to make it on hard courts. I got hurt a little bit, but I'm happy I made it legendary for myself."