Novak Djokovic won a draw – Sport – Kommersant

In the capital of Kazakhstan, the Astana Open reached the finish line – the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tournament of the 500 category with a prize fund of $ 2 million. In its decisive match, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, who defeated Andrei Rublev in three games, and Novak Djokovic will meet. The famous Serb passed Daniil Medvedev, who took the first game and refused to continue the fight at the end of the second set. The exact diagnosis of the Russian muscle injury will be known after he returns home to Monte Carlo.

Experienced Moscow fans, who could easily be met in Astana on the sidelines of the National Tennis Center, of course, experienced a poignant sense of nostalgia this Saturday. After all, the atmosphere in this relatively small but cozy hall of three thousand people, filled to capacity with an audience hungry for tennis spectacles, reminded them of the heyday of the Kremlin Cup. Then, 20-30 years ago, in the Olimpiyskiy they also sat on the steps during the main matches, and the security guards, still inexperienced in the intricacies of the rules of the game with rackets and the ball, asked journalists in the evenings how many more tie-breaks they had to play, so that finally everyone went home. Now, in this way, Kazakhstan is joining tennis, and this process is progressing very successfully. In any case, the Astana Open semi-finals were a success. Even despite the fact that one of them ended at the very moment when everyone categorically wanted to continue, and Russian tennis players, who are treated in a special way here, were not in the final.

The beginning of the day, however, turned out to be optimistic for them. Andrei Rublev simply brilliantly played the first half of the match against Stefanos Tsitsipas, taking the serve at the very beginning of the meeting and managing to play a set and a half very cleanly. Rublev’s signature right hand blows, with which he knows how to break any defense, combined with backhands along the line, gave the Greek a lot of problems. In addition, at first Tsitsipas was nervous, and in the aggregate, all this predetermined the outcome of the first game, in the end of which Rublev managed to win back from 15:40. However, he failed to develop success. As both opponents grew tired, Tsitsipas gradually began to take the initiative into his own hands. Rublev, apparently, did not cope a little with a sense of responsibility in the tenth game of the second installment, which he played extremely unsuccessfully on his serve. True, there was still a third set ahead, in the fifth game of which the Russian had the opportunity to take the lead and missed a double break point. This was Rublev’s last chance, as the eighth game of his serve went to Tsitsipas.

As a result – 4:6, 6:4, 6:3 in 2 hours and 7 minutes.

The Greek reached the decisive stage for the sixth time this season (he won two of the previous five finals this year).

As for the Russians, the 180 rating points earned for reaching the semi-finals can serve as a certain consolation. In the fight for getting into the final ATP tournament in Turin, Rublev now feels a little more comfortable than at the beginning of the week.

The second semi-final, between Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic, was considered by many to be the main match of the entire tournament. And you can’t say that it was a clear exaggeration. Indeed, in this case, two magnificent masters opposed each other, who until relatively recently led the world rating in turn, and in Astana for several days in a row demonstrated the game of the highest level.

Here, too, the first set was left for the Russian, who in the middle of the game twice took someone else’s serve, and gave his own only once. On a relatively slow court, it was extremely difficult for Djokovic to break through the debugged Medvedev defense, and the exchanges of short blows, which both opponents constantly used, did not give a clear advantage to either one or the other. In the second set, the game continued to proceed in much the same way. It was viscous and viscous, but extremely spectacular tennis, full of sophisticated tactical struggle. And Djokovic was nervous. Things got to the point that the referee had to write out a remark to the Serb after the racket that escaped from his hands (according to Djokovic, this happened by accident) flew to the podium.

The culmination of the evening was a tie-break, in which Medvedev won the first point with the help of another shortened one. At that moment, only the most attentive spectators noticed that he looked towards his team and made a characteristic gesture, crossing his arms. And a few minutes later, unexpectedly for everyone, and first of all for Djokovic, the Russian, having lost the tie-break, refused to continue the fight. The reason for this drama with the score 4:6, 7:6 (8:6) was an injury to the left leg, which was suddenly pulled by Medvedev. For a moment, his vision even went dark. At first he thought of the beginning convulsions, but then he realized that this was not the case. “If I had played the third set, I might have completely torn a muscle. Five to ten points could be run, but the whole game – it would be goodbye, ”he said. The nature of the injury and the timing of Medvedev’s recovery, apparently, will become known after the examination, which he intends to undergo at home in Monte Carlo. Djokovic, however, had only to honestly admit the fact that this time the final was not the same player who looked better for most of the match.

Evgeny Fedyakov