Daniil Medvedev lost to Karen Khachanov in the third round of the tournament in Monte Carlo
[ad_1]
The strongest tennis player in Russia, Daniil Medvedev, dropped out of the fight at the Masters 1000 series tournament in Monte Carlo. In the third round, Medvedev met with his compatriot Karen Khachanov, whom he had previously beaten with an almost one hundred percent guarantee. However, this time Medvedev was played against by his dislike for clay surfaces and his inability to contain his emotions, which resulted in a loud altercation with the referee and match supervisor. As a result, Khachanov won a well-deserved victory with a score of 6:3, 7:5.
The tournament in Monte Carlo kicked off the European clay season, which is crowned by the second major of the season – the French Open, taking place in late May – early June. Until last year, only once did our tennis player achieve success in Monaco, the home of “ground” specialists such as Rafael Nadal, who has 11 titles to his name: Andrei Chesnokov became the champion back in 1990. Last year, Andrei Rublev repeated his achievement. It is not surprising that the main attention of the Russian public at the current championship was focused on him. However, Rublev misfired in the first match (he started the tournament from the second round), losing to Alexei Popyrin, who played for Australia.
For Rublev, by the way, this defeat promises trouble. It will cost him almost a thousand rating points, which jeopardizes his position in the rankings.
He will most likely retain sixth place for now, but difficulties may arise further. After all, now very close, at a distance of three to four hundred points from Rublev, in the current virtual ranking are Hubert Hurkacz and Grigor Dimitrov (while Holger Rune, who is in seventh place, will most likely fall out of the top 10 altogether).
But even after Rublev’s retirement, the Russian public still had someone to worry about. Let’s say, for the fourth number in the ranking Daniil Medvedev or the 17th racket of the world Karen Khachanov. The tournament draw, however, was such that they crossed paths already in the third round. Statistics from previous meetings between Medvedev and Khachanov gave, at first glance, every reason to believe that the former would advance to the next round. After all, out of six previously held head-to-head meetings, Medvedev won five. Moreover, the last three victories occurred in 2023. And Khachanov’s only victory took place back in 2018.
Another thing is that in Monte Carlo, Medvedev and Khachanov met for the first time in their careers on clay, which is clearly not one of the former’s favorite surfaces.
Actually, in his career there is only one dirt title – the champion of last year’s Masters 1000 series competition in Rome. Medvedev himself admitted before the match against Khachanov that his opponent plays better on slow surfaces. “But I can also play well on clay,” said the world number four. “Even when I’m 45, I can always say that I won the Rome Masters.”
However, the match showed that Medvedev still has some work to do when it comes to clay play. After a chaotic start (four games ended in breaks), Medvedev himself handed Khachanov the leader’s banner, making a double fault on a game ball. Khachanov led 5:3 and in the next game he took the set.
In the second game there was an equal fight for a long time, until in the 11th game Medvedev lost his nerve. Frankly speaking, the referees also had a hand in this, not noticing that the ball went out of bounds after Khachanov’s shot.
But Medvedev himself is also to blame for responding to the blow instead of demanding verification. It all ended with a lost game and an explosion of emotions. Medvedev threw his racket to the side with all possible fury, sat down in his seat and began to argue with the referee, and then with the match supervisor. “Who will be responsible for this, Carlos! Open your damn eyes! The ball went out of bounds. Who will take responsibility? – he told the judge. “I shouldn’t judge. It’s this guy with glasses, but he can’t see anything! It was out!” – this was already said to the supervisor who arrived in time. Let us add that after the match, Khachanov himself, after shaking Medvedev’s hand, admitted that he saw the out.
The judges’ decision, however, remained unchanged. In addition, they valued Medvedev’s outburst of anger as a lost point, so Medvedev began the decisive game on Khachanov’s serve, losing 0:15. He had neither the strength nor, it seems, the desire to hold on to this match, and he lost – 3:6, 5:7. In the quarterfinals, Karen Khachanov will meet Stefanos Tsitsipas. In this confrontation, Khachanov will again formally be an outsider: the score of his personal meetings with the Greek tennis player is 1:7.
[ad_2]
Source link