Daniil Medvedev clashed with golden youth

At the Nitto ATP Finals, the final tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) with a prize fund of $15 million, held in Turin, the group stage has ended. After Daniil Medvedev lost to Carlos Alcaraz in two sets on Friday, it became clear that in Saturday’s semifinals the Russian’s opponent would be another debutant in this competition, Italian Jannik Sinner, and the Spaniard would meet his six-time winner, Serbian Novak Djokovic. From the press center of the Pala Alpitour arena – Kommersant correspondent Evgeny Fedyakov.

A week ago, before the start of the Nitto ATP Finals, Carlos Alcaraz’s chances of a successful performance in Turin were assessed with restraint. It was clear that the recent leader of the world classification and two-time winner of the Grand Slam championships would claim victory in any competition, although in this case counterarguments could be made. It wasn’t just that Alcaraz was taking part in the final competition for the first time with an atypical group stage for tennis. The Spaniard’s athletic form was simply questionable; after losing to Daniil Medvedev in the US Open semifinals, he was treated for a leg injury and, by and large, showed nothing. However, in Turin, Alcaraz is improving literally before our eyes. The defeat from Alexander Zverev in an equal fight was followed by a spectacular victory over Andrei Rublev, and now Medvedev has fallen under the Spaniard’s hot hand. Probably, to some extent, we can make allowances for the fact that for the Russian, who had already secured his place in the semi-finals, this meeting was important only in terms of prize money and rating points, while Alcaraz necessarily needed victory. However, in reality, there was no talk of any mismanagement on Medvedev’s part or his choice of an opponent in the semi-finals.

It’s just that the Spaniard showed very dashing tennis, which may well allow him to take the title in Turin.

In the first set, events developed quite quickly. Having failed to capitalize on a double break point in the fourth game, Medvedev lost his serve at 3-3. Moreover, the first play of the seventh game, which Alcaraz ended with a cannon-like oblique blow from the right diagonally from one corner of the court to the other, turned out to be a masterpiece. After the match ended, the Kommersant correspondent asked the Russian whose forehand was more difficult for him to handle – Alcaraz or Rublev, who is also famous for his forehand. “Indeed, they have a similar game in some ways, but I would not call them the same tennis players. The difference is that Andrei, whose ball flies very strongly, still needs to make two or three hits to complete the rally, while Carlos is able to do it with one touch, although he makes mistakes a little more often,” Medvedev explained.

In the second game, Alcaraz continued to keep the situation under control. In the third game, the Russian came back from a score of 15:40, but the ninth game turned out to be decisive. The result was 6:4, 6:4 in 80 minutes. This meant that the final game in the Red Group between Alexander Zverev and Andrey Rublev could no longer affect the composition of the semi-final pairs. Medvedev, who finished second in his foursome, will play Italian Jannik Sinner on Saturday afternoon, while Alcaraz will face Novak Djokovic in the evening. That is, tickets to the finals will be competed for by the four strongest rated participants in the tournament. The last time this happened at the final tournaments was in London in 2020, when Medvedev became the champion. After six victories over Sinner, this fall he lost his last two meetings to the Italian tennis player in the finals of the 500 category tournaments in Beijing and Vienna. Although this fact should not be given too much importance.

“If you follow this logic, it turns out that when the match score was 6:0, I knew how to play with Sinner, but now I don’t know,” Medvedev reasoned at a press conference, answering a question from Kommersant. “The only thing that matters now is that Yannick is in excellent shape and is playing in his homeland, Italy. In principle, I played well in Beijing and even better in Vienna, but this was not enough. This means that here in Turin I must show tennis of even higher quality.”