What are they doing to the Canadian? – Newspaper Kommersant No. 31 (7476) dated February 18, 2023

Former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev continues his strong performance at the ABN AMRO Open, the ongoing €2.2 million tournament of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in Rotterdam with a prize fund of €2.2 million. -Aliassime, who occupies the eighth place in the world ranking, the Russian will meet with the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in the semi-finals and, in case of victory over him, will return to the top ten.

Felix Auger-Aliassime, who turned out to be Daniil Medvedev’s rival in the semi-finals of the tournament in Rotterdam, firmly secured his place in the world elite in 2022. Not only did he win four singles titles, but he was also a huge contributor to Canada’s two tag team victories, the ATP Cup and the Davis Cup, held at the start and end of last season, respectively. Working with Toni Nadal, the uncle and former coach of ex-world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, who has long been part of the Auger-Aliassime team, does not go unnoticed, but this winter is not easy for the Canadian. The failure at the start of the tournament in Adelaide was followed by a forced exit to the fourth round of the Australian Open and a defeat there from an even younger than Auger-Aliassime himself, Czech Jiri Legechka, so last year’s ABN AMRO Open champion apparently arrived in Rotterdam with some deficit self-confidence.

However, the result of this quarter-final, in the first place, nevertheless predetermined a very high-quality tennis played by Medvedev. Playing albeit not as diverse as the Canadian, who tried to block the entire space of the court and often ran to the net immediately after the serve, the Russian proved that his tactics in this case are much more effective. When Medvedev serves clearly and is extremely focused on the back line, you can only cope with him with the help of perfect attacking tennis, but on Friday Auger-Aliassime was far from ideal. The first game went with the obvious advantage of the Russian, in the second set the opponents first exchanged breaks, but in the seventh game Medvedev again took someone else’s serve, after which he confidently finished the match with a score of 6:2, 6:4. Thus, he interrupted a run of nine consecutive defeats against opponents from the top 10, which began in January last year in the final of the Australian Open against Rafael Nadal.

Having won 68% of points on someone else’s second serve and spending less than an hour and a half on everything, the Russian confirmed that he is perhaps the most real contender for the Rotterdam title. This statement is partly supported by the fact that one of Medvedev’s potential rivals in the final, the ninth racket of the world Dane Holger Rune, was forced to refuse to complete the second round meeting with Gijs Brouwer, a Dutch tennis player of American origin, who got into the main draw thanks to wild card. The reason for this was a wrist injury, which, according to Rune, bothered him even during the Australian Open. He intends to miss his next tournament in Marseille.

Medvedev is now facing the semi-final against the highly experienced Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who only managed the tie-break of the third set with the Australian Alex De Minor. In this game, Dimitrov expended a lot of energy, and the score of his personal meetings with Medvedev is 4:2 in favor of the Russian, who every day looks more confident in Rotterdam. By the way, during the tournament it turned out that in order to return to the top ten, Medvedev needs not to take the title, but to reach the final. For a tennis player who until recently led the world rankings, but then lost his points reserves, you can’t imagine a better incentive.

Evgeny Fedyakov