In his third final of a Grand Slam tournament, on Sunday (10 pm, Eurosport), Rafael Nadal will have in New York a rival very different from the two he faced with unequal fortune at the Australian Open and Roland Garros. Daniil Medvedev, debutante in the final round of a major , has little to do with Novak Djokovic, relentless against the Spaniard in Melbourne, or Dominic Thiem, a clay specialist who dared to challenge for the second consecutive year and 12 times champion on the Parisian land.

The Spaniard is faced with the formidable opportunity to win for the fourth time the United States Open and add his nineteenth Grand Slam title, which would place just one of Roger Federer, absolute leader. To this historic challenge, which would allow him to glimpse the Australian Open next year with the illusion of matching the Swiss, the door already opened to fight again for world number 1 is added. If it wins, it will be only 640 points from Novak Djokovic. The Serbian, who hopes to reappear on the 30th in Tokyo after leaving when he lost in the round against Stan Wawrinka due to a left shoulder injury, has enough points to defend from here at the end of the season, while Nadal will only add, given that He hasn't played any games in 2018 since he also retired due to injury when he lost to Juan Martín del Potro in the semifinals of the last US Open.

Medvedev, for now, is a circumstantial phenomenon, a player who has planted in the final with the winning inertia of his amazing summer: champion in Cincinnati and runner-up in Montreal and Washington. He has won 22 of the last 24 games and does not seem to want to stop at anything and anyone, not in front of the New York public, with whom he has sought peace in the last two games after facing angrily during the third round match against Feliciano López.

Ambitious and provocative

There is more truth in the young provocateur who thanked the spectators with sneer his animosity when he played with the Toledo who in the docile-looking boy who sought to redeem himself with the stands from a physical ailment perhaps exaggerated in the quarterfinal match against Stan Wawrinka Medvedev, who will leave New York number four in the world, is more in the trenches of the bad boys, along with Nick Kyrigios or Stefanos Tsitsipas, with whom he had an ugly verbal refreshment last year in Miami, than on the side of those who do gala of a sincere exemplarity, case of Dominic Thiem.

Part of his strengths reside in an extraordinary voracity that has allowed him to leave behind the short player of involvement and rebel at the instructions of the Frenchman Gilles Cervara, with whom he trains for five years. Add 50 wins, more than anyone else on the circuit this season, three more than Nadal himself, and 37 hard track wins, where he also acts as a quantitative leader.

In Cincinnati he won his first Masters 1000. He was a small tournament tennis player, with previous titles in Sofia, this year, in addition to Tokyo, Winston Salem and Sydney, in 2018. Until arriving in New York, he had never surpassed the eighth of a tournament of the Grand Slam. In a surprising US Open, Matteo Berrettini, a victim of Nadal in the semifinals, and Daniil Medvedev have been the bearers of the new generation, ahead of men like Alexander Zverev or Stefanos Tsitsipas, players with more natural qualities than are still expected much more than what they have offered so far.

“It's great to have the experience of having played against him in the final of a 1000 Masters. I know what awaits me. And I know how to prepare for it, ”said Medvedev about the match against Nadal, who crushed him 6-3 and 6-0 in the Montreal final, on August 12. «He is one of the greatest champions in the history of our sport. It is a machine, a beast on the court. The energy he is showing is incredible ».

If something else showed Medvedev in his semifinal match against Grigor Dimitrov, who came from beating Federer in the quarterfinals, it was his ability to win without offering his best game. The Muscovite, good punch but with problems when executing the second service, was 47% overall success with the first, which became 40% in the first quarter. He saved a set ball before a somewhat timid opponent and did not care that the match was subject to a certain swing, also in the second set. On Sunday, before Nadal, he will pay a high price for any carelessness.

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