Daniil Medvedev is on schedule

At the BNP Paribas Open, an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters 1000 tournament with a prize fund of $9.5 million approaching its culmination in Indian Wells, America, the participants in the semi-finals have been determined. Among them was last year’s finalist, Russian Daniil Medvedev. After winning in two games over the world number seven Dane Holger Rune, he will meet with the American Tommy Paul, to whom he has never lost.

Daniil Medvedev has pleasant memories of last year associated with the BNP Paribas Open tournament. Twelve months ago he reached the final there for the first time, losing only to the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. Apparently, the Russian has adapted his game well to the conditions of Indian Wells – windy weather, slow courts and specific balls that not everyone likes. Arriving in California a few days after losing to France’s Hugues Amber in the semi-finals of the Dubai tournament, he opened with a win over Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena, then had a successful, if what he called a terrible, match against American Sebastian Korda. , after which he dealt with two other, more qualified opponents.

In the 1/8 finals, Medvedev’s opponent was the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, the 13th racket in the world, who was having a successful season for himself, but lost without options in two games. And in the quarter-finals, the Russian had to face the resistance of Holger Rune, who, despite a bad start to the season and frequent changes of coaches in recent months, still retains his place in the top ten. There were many long rallies in this match. Having recently returned to the French specialist Patrick Mouratoglou, the Dane tried to cope with Medvedev through frequent changes of rhythm and cutting blows, which were superimposed on the gusty wind. However, the favorite showed a fair amount of restraint, successfully played through the end of the first set, and then, having won a break at the beginning of the second game, was able to avoid a marathon meeting, winning – 7:5, 6:4 – in exactly two hours. Thus, Rune was unable to take revenge from Medvedev for his defeat in the final of last year’s Masters 1000 clay tournament in Rome, where he took his last title so far.

The Russian tennis player’s next opponent will be American Tommy Paul, a semi-finalist at last year’s Australian Open. For the second season in a row, he remains in the top 20 of the world rankings, showing, albeit not outstanding, but fairly stable results. Among those whom Paul dealt with in Indian Wells were Hugo Amber, Italian Luca Nardi, who sensationally knocked out world ranking leader Serbian Novak Djokovic in the third round, and Norwegian Casper Ruud, whom the US representative beat in the quarterfinals in three games. Of course, the upcoming semi-final cannot be considered a pass for Medvedev, although his chances are clearly higher, especially since he won a relatively easy victory over Paul last fall in Beijing.

However, in any case, we can already say that, despite missing several February tournaments, today Medvedev’s points total roughly follows the schedule of last season.

If in 2023 Medvedev had 2030 points earned in six competitions after Indian Wells, now, playing only his third tournament since the beginning of January, he has already scored 1900 points, and if he reaches the finals, he will add to this amount another 250 points.

The match with Paul will take place on Saturday, as will the other semi-final, between last year’s Indian Wells winner Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, whose unbeaten streak, taking into account the end of the previous season, already consists of 19 matches. The Spaniard on Thursday confidently dealt with Alexander Zverev from Germany, who, despite this, pushed Andrey Rublev from fifth to sixth place in the ATP classification, and the Italian beat the Czech Jiri Legechka. The overall score of the personal meetings between these tennis players is 4:3 in favor of Sinner, who retained the last two matches, although Alcaraz prevailed in last year’s semi-finals of the PNP Baribas Open. The winner of their confrontation guarantees himself the title of second racket in the world, which for now remains with the Spaniard.

Evgeniy Fedyakov