Daniil Medvedev
Australian Open: Daniil Medvedev beats Tsitsipas to enter final, will face Djokovic
Melbourne/UNI: Russia's Daniil Medvedev reached the Australian Open final for the first time with a dominant victory against Stefanos Tsitsipas, here on Friday.
The in-form Medvedev won 6-4 6-2 7-5 against Greek fifth seed Tsitsipas, securing his 20th victory in a row.
Aside from a late third-set comeback attempt from Tsitsipas, Medvedev neutralised his opponent’s attacking skills and contested the majority of the two-hour, nine-minute encounter on his terms inside Rod Laver Arena.
The World No 4 landed 46 winners, compared to just 21 unforced errors, and won 88 per cent of his first-serve points (49/56) en route to victory.
''It was definitely not easy, because we saw the match with Rafa was kind of the same score after two sets. [In] the third set, Rafa was dominating but didn’t manage to win the match, so I got a little bit scared and tight," said Medvedev, after the win.
"It is the semi-final of a Slam… It was not easy, but I am happy I managed to switch my game on, especially in some tight moments on my serve and I am really happy to be in the final,'' he added.
Across his 20-match winning streak, Medvedev has defeated 12 Top 10 players. The Russian’s most recent loss against a Top 10 opponent came at last year’s US Open, when he fell to eventual champion Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals.
Alongside Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro, Medvedev is the sixth active player to record a 20-match tour-level winning streak.
Medvedev will contest his second major final when he meets Novak Djokovic on Sunday.
The 25-year-old owns a 3-4 ATP Head2Head record against the World No 1, which includes a 6-3, 6-3 victory in their most recent encounter at last year’s Nitto ATP Finals.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
