Novak Djokovic – Daniil Medvedev. Forecast and announcement of the Australian Open final

On Sunday, February 21, the men’s final of the Australian Open will be played, in which the Serbian Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev of Russia will play. The match will start at 10:30 Kiev time.

Victory in this match should bring one of the players some $ 978,000, in addition to the $ 1.17 million already earned.Djokovic will not earn ATP ranking points under interim rules, as he took the title for the year last. Medvedev can add 800 points to his trump card and become the second racket in the world, ahead of Rafael Nadal. The Russian’s victory may be historic, because the last non-Big Four in the top 2 was Lleyton Hewitt in August 2005.

During the tournament, Novak experienced serious problems. Or maybe he was pretending. In the third round match against American Taylor Fritz Djokovic, according to him, he tore an abdominal muscle and made a very miserable impression for two sets. It seemed like his title campaign was over, but in the final match he played completely differently and won without a hitch. And before that Novak was imposed a serious fight by the American Francis Tiafoe, who also managed to hook the set in the match with the favorite. But Djokovic is Djokovic, he overcame all these problems, lost one more set in tiebreaks in the later stages and reached the Australian Open final for the ninth time. It is worth noting that for the first time in his career, Nole spent over a thousand minutes on the court (1005) to reach the TBS final (1005), before losing all three times in a title match if total time it exceeded 940 minutes.

Medvedev toured the web with more confidence. Five of the six matches were won in three sets and only one more Serb, Filip Krajinovic, was difficult. The Russian won two sets, after which he suffered two games, got into a fight with the coach and called the doctor (he pulled the buttock). But in the fifth game, it all ended with a midfielder for the Serbian. In the later stages, Medvedev encountered highly skilled but comfortable opponents. Both Rublev and Tsitsipas are his clients, so the victory was clearly visible even before the match. In addition, the Greek in the quarterfinals gave a charming comeback with 0: 2 in the matches against Nadal. It is not very clear how to preserve emotions for the next match after such a triumph, and Stefanos’ physical condition was not ideal.

Tournament route

Tournament statistics

	Djokovic	Medvedev
matches	6	6
opponents average rating	48.5	66.8
average game time	2:47	2:03
seconds spent at a point	43	42
points earned with service,%	71.6	70.9
ace / game	0.34	0.33
double faults / game	0.07	0.07
% of first feeding	66.7	62.6
points earned with the first serve,%	78.3	81.2
points won with second serve,%	58.1	53.7
points earned at the reception,%	36.3	42.3
implemented breakpoints,%	44.4	58.8
Grid / game outputs	0.38	0.48
points earned on the network,%	68.6	62.1
winners / game	0.96	1.0
unforced errors / game	0.61	0.67

Meetings between us

It is also very interesting here. Djokovic continues to lead 4: 3, but all of Medvedev’s victories have been achieved in the last four head-to-head matches. On the courts of Melbourne, the tennis players faced off once: in 2019, the Serbian won in four sets and finally took the title. Also, don’t forget that the Russian has won in the last 12 games against top-10 players. Federer’s incredible record is still a long way off (24), but this streak is still impressive.

Forecast

Medvedev was initially seen as the second runner-up to match Djokovic. Even a possible match with Nadal in the semi-finals would hardly have stopped a tennis player from Russia, who won in incredible form. Still, you can beat Rafa hard, as evidenced by his win statistics against the top 10 on this surface at TBSH (47%). For example, Novak has a much higher rate (74%).

Many factors, including the US Open-2019 final experience, add whists to Daniel, but Novak has something to answer for. He has never lost the final in Melbourne, bison like Murray and Nadal have been repeatedly beaten here. Last year, the Serbian managed to come back from 1: 2 in sets against Dominik Thiem. He also wins every three of the four games that span five games. Before this tournament, Medvedev lost six of six, the victory over Krainovich became his debut. Therefore, you should definitely not delay the resolution of the main task.

Previously, of simple mortals in the final of the Helmets, only Stan Wawrinka (three times) and Juan Martín del Potro managed to beat the representatives of the Big Four. The other 17 applicants were unsuccessful.

On Sunday, Djokovic faces the battle for the legacy, he has something to lose. After Nadal’s fall performance in Paris, hardly anyone will be able to stop him from doing the same in more comfortable spring conditions. If Novak wants to win more helmets, then the Spaniard cannot be released for four titles.

Prediction: Djokovic’s victory in four sets