Daniil Medvedev failed to reach the Wimbledon final for the first time

Daniil Medvedev failed to reach the Wimbledon final for the first time. This became clear after he relatively quickly lost in three games to the leader of the world ranking, Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard’s opponent in the decisive match will be the seven-time winner of the London Major Serb Novak Djokovic, who, after a confident victory over the Italian Yannick Sinner, will compete for his third this year and 24th career Grand Slam title.

The semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz was called by the Frenchman Gilles Servara, Daniil Medvedev’s coach, a huge challenge both for himself and for his ward. The fact is that four months ago, in the finals of the Masters 1000 tournament on Indian Wells hard, the Spaniard had a huge advantage in almost all tennis components, tearing apart the Russian’s signature defense with powerful flat shots. After that game, Servara said exactly that: they say, they kicked our ass. On grass, Medvedev was more able to use the power of his serve. But besides her, against such a dangerous opponent, you must always have something else in reserve, otherwise any failure will be fraught with insurmountable consequences. Of course, in the arsenal of the Russian there are also spectacular dribble shots, and on the back line he is able to run across anyone. However, it was not clear to anyone, including Servar, whether all this would be enough to cope with the pressure of the Spaniard rushing forward, an extremely versatile player, at a critical moment.

From the very first draws, Alcaraz began to use the classic technique used against tennis players who, like Medvedev, are very far behind the back line at the reception. He served very obliquely into the first square and, if the Russian had time to get the ball, he immediately went to the net. At first Medvedev was not embarrassed. For three games in a row, he confidently held his serve, but in the eighth game he lost it, then giving up the first set.

And then everything went downhill for Medvedev. He tried to change the situation – he tried to compete with Alcaraz in the performance of shortened blows and sharply counterattacked, but the longer the meeting went on, the more obvious it became that the Spaniard was superior to the Russian in almost everything.

The amazing game of Alcaraz from a half-flight, when he sent the ball very subtly to points that were practically inaccessible to Medvedev, delighted the audience, and in the second game, the advantage of the world ranking leader became overwhelming – he took someone else’s serve twice, having won back one break point.

After Alcaraz took the lead in the third set – 3:0, it began to seem that the meeting could end in a few minutes, but then the rivals relaxed a little and organized a tennis attraction of unheard-of generosity. In total, in that game, the Spaniard lost his pitch twice, and Medvedev – three. As a result – 6:3, 6:3, 6:3 in just 1 hour 49 minutes. Winning on his second serve only 30% of the points – 10 out of 33 – the third racket of the world, of course, could not count on success in a match with such a dangerous opponent.

Having completed his most successful Wimbledon of his career and reaching the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since last year’s Australian Open, Medvedev has cemented himself in third place both in the world rankings and in the points classification scored this season. However, he cannot count on leadership positions there yet. For them, and above all for the Wimbledon champion title, incredibly prestigious in itself, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic will compete on Sunday, who also defeated Yannick Sinner in three sets and became the sole leader in another statistical indicator. From now on, Djokovic has 35 major finals – one more than the American Chris Evert (the second on this list – Roger Federer with his 31 finals – is already far behind), and, perhaps, in the match against Alcaraz, he will be a favorite primarily thanks to great experience.

Although, given the absence of any complexes before the authorities, the 20-year-old Spaniard is far from certain that this advantage of Djokovic can become decisive.

And if Alcaraz, unlike the Roland Garros semi-final where he lost to the Serbian tennis player due to physical problems, manages to avoid overexertion, it will be extremely difficult for Djokovic to defeat the only opponent to date who can prevent him from winning his 24th tournament title Grand Slam and 8th at Wimbledon.

Evgeny Fedyakov