37 blows that shook Turin
[ad_1]
On the second day of the final tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in Turin with a prize fund of $14.75 million, the first match in the history of this competition was held with the participation of two Russian tennis players at once. It turned out to be extremely tense: to defeat Daniil Medvedev with a score of 6:7 (7:9), 6:3, 7:6 (9:7), Andrei Rublev needed 37 hits on the fifth match point and 2 hours and 31 minutes of playing time, what the correspondent of “Kommersant” witnessed Evgeny Fedyakov.
An hour and a half after the completion of this magnificent tennis performance, Andrei Rublev’s eyes were still burning. “37 hits on a match point? he clarified, answering my question. “No, it never happened. This is the first time in my life that this has happened to me.” And Daniil Medvedev, despite the discouraging result for himself, found the strength to be happy for his old friend. “Of course, I am very upset that I lost,” he admitted. “But in a sense, everything is not so bad. Now Andriy has a chance to get out of the group, and if he beats the others, maybe it will help me too.”
First Russian duel at the final ATP tournaments was of great importance for each of its participants. Both understood that, since the toughest meetings with Novak Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas were coming up, the defeat in the opening meeting could be too expensive. Medvedev seemed to be considered her favorite. The ratio of wins and losses in previous meetings with Rublev (4:1) spoke in his favor, as well as a bright history of previous performances at the Nitto ATP Finals, including a victory two years ago and reaching the final last year. For Rublev, the previous two Nitto ATP Finals, on the contrary, were unsuccessful, although a year ago he did not reach the semi-finals quite a bit.
However, the forecasts, according to which Medvedev should have come out relatively calmly as a winner, rather quickly came into conflict with reality.
True, he pulled out the first game, first managing to win back the lost pitch, and then seven set points, including five in a tie-break. But such a result hardly fully corresponded to the logic of the events unfolding on the court, since the opponent looked more powerful on the back line. Then Rublev admits that during the break before the second set, he wanted to destroy the locker room – the denouement of the first game turned out to be so offensive, during which, moreover, the mistakes of the line judges kept getting on the nerves. And, apparently, the release of negative emotions helped the future winner to keep the mood for further struggle. In the second set, Medvedev lost the pitch twice – in the third and ninth game, during which he made three double faults. And the match was balanced.
In the third installment, the degree of struggle reached a boiling point. On the fastest, according to Medvedev, coverage, on which the ATP Tour tournaments have been held for the past two years, he still looked less stable. He managed to close the tenth game with four aces (he had more than twenty in total), but in most of the protracted skirmishes, which were breathtaking in the stands of the Pala Alpitour, Rublev more often came out victorious. One of them began the tie-break of the third set, which became the culmination of the match. Rublev again got a significant advantage – 6:3, and again Medvedev managed to catch up with him – with the help of a rare but effective exit to the net. However, the last point, on the fifth match point, where everything also hung in the balance, still remained with Rublev, who, however, categorically refused to assess his future prospects. “The group is very tough. I have to play with opponents whom I have lost many times. I will try very hard, but if the same thing is destined for me now, then so be it,” said Rublev. “In any case, I will know that I played one good match here.”
The next rivals of each of the Russians were determined in the evening confrontation between Djokovic and Tsitsipas. According to the regulations of the tournament, in the second round in one of the matches the winners of the meetings of the first round meet, and in the other – their losers.
[ad_2]
Source link