Without a fight: how Medvedev defeated Rublev in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and became the third racket of the world

Recently, the confrontation between Daniil Medvedev and Andrei Rublev in the quarterfinals of major competitions has become commonplace.

In 2019, tennis players met at the Masters in Cincinnati and the championship in St. Petersburg, and a year later - at the US Open.

Until that moment, the Russians had never played among themselves at this stage of the Grand Slam tournaments, so the event became truly historical.

In total, tennis players shared the court four times, however, only one of them had positive emotions from these events.

Medvedev not only prevailed over his compatriot, but did not even give him the opportunity to take a set.

Nevertheless, starting from the third match, Rublev's indicators, albeit slowly, but steadily grew.

In the first two he took five games, in the third - 9, and in the fourth - twice brought the matter to a tie-break.

Following a simple logic, this time Andrei had to, if not impose a fierce struggle, then at least break the score in the parties.

In favor of Rublev, the fact that in the course of the championship he lost significantly less strength could also speak.

He went through the first three rounds in one breath and did not lose a single set, and in the fourth he was completely limited to two games.

Kasper Ruud was forced to call a doctor to the court during the meeting, and later withdrew due to injury.

Medvedev's path was not much more difficult, except for the confrontation with Filip Krayinovich.

Daniel was leading 2: 0 in lots, but got nervous and allowed the Serb to restore parity.

However, he pulled himself together and in the fifth set did not give the opponent a game.

The famous Russian tennis player Evgeny Kafelnikov assumed that the match would be very equal, and the winner of the first set would win the entire meeting.

As it turned out later, he was right on all counts.

At the start, the rivals were not inferior to each other and mostly confidently took their serve.

Until the end of the game, both allowed themselves only one breakdown, exchanging breaks in the sixth and seventh games, after which a fight began again on the court.

Therefore, what happened when the score was 5: 6 was a real surprise.

In the previous game, Rublev looked very good and won two rallies at the reception, while Medvedev, on the contrary, was not so stable and suddenly began to make mistakes when performing the forehand.

It seemed that everything was heading for a tie-break, but Andrey made three unforced mistakes and lost his serve, and with it the first game in the current Australian Open draw.

Already at the end of the first game, Rublev clearly demonstrated that he was feeling unwell.

After protracted rallies, the tennis player needed a certain time to recover and prepare for the next one.

Over time, such episodes only became more frequent, which could be associated with the fever.

The match took place at a temperature of 29 ° C, but the organizers decided not to close the roof.

Despite health problems, in the second set, Rublev markedly improved in all the main statistical indicators.

The service percentage increased from 50 to 62, the number of actively won goals - from four to 11, and the unforced errors were slightly reduced - 14 instead of 17. All this led to the fact that even in a far from ideal physical condition, he was close to leading with a break.

With the score 3: 3, Andrey had three opportunities to win a game at the reception, but did not convert any of them.

Perhaps he was knocked out of the rhythm by the situation with Daniel's vibration damper that flew off the racket.

The search took several minutes, and after the pause ended, Medvedev took three points in a row.

Two of them are due to the unforced errors of the vis-a-vis.

The impression was that at this moment Rublev "floated".

He ran out of strength, and psychologically he was not ready for such a blow.

Medvedev took six more games in a row and not only won the second set, but also secured a comfortable advantage in the third.

Even a short break, which he spent in the under-stands room, did not help Andrey.

After every third rally, the Russian leaned on the racket, with difficulty maintaining balance.

It seemed that for Rublev the most logical decision would be to take a medical break, but, for inexplicable reasons, he did not.

At the same time, he also refused to withdraw from the game, continuing to desperately fight with his compatriot and friend.

Andrei did not succeed in absolutely nothing: he hit the square on the move only in 28% of cases, and at the reception he looked absolutely helpless.

In total, he won only six points on Medvedev's serve, and on the first of them - only one of 13 (8%).

In the end, he managed to soak the account and give up not dry, but this was a weak consolation for him.

Medvedev won with a score of 7: 5, 6: 3, 6: 2, and for the fifth time in a row he confirmed his superiority over Rublev, not allowing him to take a single set.

This gave Daniel the opportunity to extend his unbeaten streak to 19 matches and for the 11th time in a row to deal with a representative of the top 10 of the ATP rankings, as well as guarantee himself the title of the third racket of the world.

“We had incredible protracted rallies, after which it was hard to catch our breath ... I think I'm one of the few players who managed to exhaust Andrey so much, and I'm happy about that.

Playing against a friend is never easy ... I can handle his amazing high shots and it was one of my best matches lately.

Not only at this tournament, but in general over the last year.

This match was really incredible because he played very well, but I managed to beat him in three sets, without a single tie-break.

I am very glad, ”Medvedev admitted.

Thus, for the third time in his career, he reached the semifinals of the Grand Slam tournament and for the first time achieved such a result on the courts of Melbourne.

Among Russians, only Nikolay Davydenko (four), Evgeny Kafelnikov (six) and Marat Safin (seven) most often reached this stage of majors.

The triumphant of the confrontation between Rafael Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas will try to prevent Daniil from reaching the final to confirm the status of one of the main experts in playing on hard and to get into the final.