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- Daniil Medvedev (ATP 4) advances to the Melbourne final with a show of force over Stefanos Tsitsipas (ATP 6).
- The Greek woke up at 4: 6, 2: 6, 5: 7 in just 129 minutes, clearly too late.
- In his second Grand Slam final after New York 2019, Medvedev will face defending champion and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Sunday.
Daniil Medvedev is unfazed on his way to the Australian Open. In the semi-final success over a much smaller Stefanos Tsitsipas, the winner of the 2020 London ATP Finals lined up his 20th win (!). Against a top 10 representative, the 25-year-old had the advantage for the 12th time in a row.
And how the Greek got under the wheels in 4: 6, 2: 6, 5: 7 at least in the first two sets, even Novak Djokovic, who is looking forward to Sunday’s final, has to think. Tsitsipas hadn’t been able to win a break ball until the middle of the third set. The distribution of the points at the end (106: 77) underscores the clear verdict at the Rod Laver Arena.
Still a brief blink
The story of the game is quickly told. Medvedev made the first breakthrough on serve in the opening set to 3: 2; thereafter, the match only ran in one direction for at least an hour. The Russian had the first deal in his pocket at 39 minutes. In round number 2 there were breaks at 2: 1 and 5: 2.
Only in the sixth game of the third set did the world number 6 find his way out of the negative spiral. From his point of view, Tsitsipas worked his first breakballs with a score of 2: 3 and knew how to tie. In his opponent’s next service game, he had another opportunity to take his serve off. But from then on, Medvedev scored a point again. The decisive break followed 6: 5, with which the thing was scraped.
Already 3 victories of 7 duels with Djokovic
Tsitsipas thus lost his third consecutive big semi-final (after 2020 in Paris and 2019 in Melbourne). Aside from a win in a free-for-all game at the ATP Finals, the 22-year-old has always lost to Medvedev in 6 matches so far.
The Eastern European may attempt to reach New York in the 2019 season in his second Grand Slam final of his career. At that time, Rafael Nadal was his conqueror. Now only Novak Djokovic stands in front of the sun or can prevent Medvedev from winning a major trophy for the first time. In a direct comparison, the challenger is only 3: 4 behind, but he beat the 17-time Grand Slam champion in the last comparison in the group stage of the 2020 ATP Finals.
