What Gilles Cervara Sees
The French coach on his past player Daniil Medvedev, his current player Nishesh Basavareddy, and his belief that the Sinner-Alcaraz stranglehold will loosen.
MELBOURNE, Australia — While an intense new genre of tennis was staged under the spotlight of the 1 Point Slam this week, the regular repertory of the Australian Open qualifying draw played on, manufacturing plenty of its own drama.
The wildest scene that I saw play out came in the second-round qualifying match between Nishesh Basavareddy of Indiana and Sebastian Ofner of Austria on Wednesday afternoon. Crucially, one player didn’t realize there was still another page left in the script.
Ofner, a 29-year-old who was ranked as high as 37th a year ago, celebrated when he took a commanding 7-1 lead in the third-set tiebreak, thinking the tiebreak and the match was won.
But as Ofner pointed to his head in triumph, he failed to realize that the counting mechanism inside it had been miscalibrated: 7-1 would’ve been the end of a match on the ATP Tour, but all singles matches at the majors have used 10-point tiebreaks in their final sets since 2022 (and since 2019 at the Australian Open).
You can imagine what happened next: Ofner struggled to reset and Basavareddy pounced, flipping the momentum of the match entirely.
Basavareddy was clear on when a victor should take his bows.
“I knew it was a 10-pointer going in, I knew there was still some time,” Basavareddy told Bounces after the match. “Obviously I didn’t win a serve point [in the tiebreak] up until then, so I needed to focus on that. But in a super tiebreak, you always have a chance, so I kept believing.”
His belief increased after he won the first point following Ofner’s false finish.
“After I won that next point,” Basavareddy said of when he felt things turn his way. “Because generally when that happens, you start overthinking. Like, ‘Oh I thought I already won the match, through to the next round.’ So yeah, that definitely gave me a little bit of hope. I saw him tense up a little bit, but the balls were quite old there, so every rally was a war. And that was my main focus: just to put as many balls in play [as possible].”
Ofner’s blunder went viral—as I instantly knew it would when I saw it courtside. Basavareddy also knew what he was going to do if he won: imitate the star player of his home NBA team, the Indiana Pacers, who himself had called back to an iconic moment by a Pacers star of yore.
“In the NBA playoffs this year, Tyrese Haliburton did the Reggie Miller,” Basavareddy said, describing the choke celebration that Miller made famous in the 1994 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. “So actually going to the breaker, I was thinking about it.”
The way that tiebreaker unfolded, Basavareddy said, confirmed his plan.
“You kind of need the other guy to choke a little bit, so,” Basavareddy told Bounces. “And that ended up happening.”
I had decided on taking a front row seat to Basavareddy’s finish, if you were wondering, because of the man sitting just to my right in the crucial moments of the match. This man, wearing one of the many NHL hats in his collection, seemed unfazed. After all, given his previous employer, he’s seen more than his fair share of dramatic moments on-court.
Gilles Cervara had been the longtime coach of Daniil Medvedev before the two split last September, starting in 2017 and continuing through Medvedev’s ascendancy up the tennis ladder, including the 2021 U.S. Open title, four more major finals, a stint at the ATP No. 1 ranking, and 20 titles on the tour.
The 45-year-old French coach, who twice had been in Medvedev’s box in Rod Laver Arena as he played fifth sets in Australian Open finals, is back this time restarting from the periphery of Melbourne Park with a 20-year-old ranked 239th.
For my money, Cervara-Basavareddy is the most fascinating new coach-player pairing of the 2026 season, and it’s paid early dividends: Basavareddy not only survived Ofner, he won another nailbiter over George Loffhagen to reach the Australian Open main draw. Basavareddy drew an enviable first-round opponent: 118th-ranked wildcard Christopher O’Connell.
To learn more about how this unexpected pairing came to be, I spoke with both Basavareddy and Cervara this week in Melbourne Park.
Most memorably, Basavareddy shared a remarkable step he’s taken to enhance his work with Cervara that I have never before heard of a player doing.
Cervara and I spoke at great length, also, about his eight years with Medvedev, their separation, and his thoughts on Medvedev’s future and the possibilities of surprises this year in men’s tennis.
“I’m sure this year they’re going to have some troubles, you know? Because they cannot stay like this forever.”
-Gilles Cervara on the Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly.
We also discussed Medvedev and Basavareddy’s unlikely shared rival, Learner Tien.
And, of course, I asked Cervara about his signature collection of hockey hats.
To read the in-depth interview and this entire 4,400-word post—plus all the other exclusive stuff on deck at Bounces during this Australian Open—please become a paid subscriber at Bounces! -Ben
