NEW YORK -- Right after Daniil Medvedev realized he had beaten the world No. 1 who was on the cusp of making history, he fell on the court. He played dead for a second, his eyes closed and his tongue out.
It was a strange celebration, not one we've seen in tennis before. But Medvedev's fans knew what he was doing.
The world No. 2 men's tennis player did a FIFA "dead fish" celebration after beating Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the US Open final for his first Grand Slam title.
During the awards ceremony, he ended his speech by saying: "Only legends will understand, but my celebration was L2 + Left." Those are the controls for the "dead fish" celebration on the FIFA video game after a player scores a goal.
And Medvedev, who is a huge fan of playing FIFA on PlayStation, had a great follow-up explanation for why he did that celebration at the post-match news conference.
During Wimbledon earlier this year, when he couldn't sleep one night, he started thinking about what he would do if he won. He didn't celebrate his wins usually, and if he won the title, he thought that would be "boring, because I do that all the time." So, he decided to make it special.
"I like to play FIFA. I like to play PlayStation," Medvedev said. "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."
He said he had a chat with the guys in the locker room and gauged their interest on the idea of doing a dead fish celebration if he won the US Open title.
"They were like, 'That's legendary,'" Medvedev said. "Everybody who I saw who plays FIFA thinks that's legendary."
So, he went for it.
"It's not because I want to be [in] the newspaper, I don't care. But I wanted to make it special for people to love, for my friends to love who I play FIFA with," he said. "I got hurt a little bit. It's not easy to [fall] on hard courts."
"I'm happy I made it legendary for myself," he said with a smile.
And it was legendary, indeed.
