The fourth "Masters" in his career: how Medvedev won the tournament in Toronto and became a "meme machine"

Daniil Medvedev was the clear favorite for the decisive match of the Masters series in Toronto.

In the semifinals, he left no chances for John Isner (6: 2, 6: 2).

And less than a day later, he was to meet with another representative of the United States - the 32nd racket of the planet Riley Opelka.

Before the reporting match, the Russian beat him three times and lost once.

A significant inconvenience to Medvedev could be caused by the growth of an opponent.

The 211cm Opelka is one of the tallest tennis players on the ATP tour.

However, Isner is not much lower than him and also relies on powerful feeds, but this did not help him in the confrontation with the native of Moscow.

So Opelka practically failed to compete with the Russian.

Yes, Riley filed eight times right through, but Medvedev with six aces was not much inferior to him in this component.

In addition, in previous matches, the American put pressure on his opponents more seriously on the serve.

In a meeting with Nick Kiryos, he filed 22 times through, with Grigor Dimitrov - 12, with Lloyd George Harris - 21, with Roberto Bautista-Agut - 18, with Stefanos Tsitsipas - 17. That is, on average, there were about 18 per game.

Medvedev, on the other hand, perfectly adapted to his opponent's tennis and successfully coped with the reception: he won 34 goals out of 78, and Opelka - only 13 out of 52.

Daniel had problems in the final only in the second game on his serve, when he had not yet fully entered the game.

With the score 2: 1 in favor of the opponent, the Russian lost 0:40, but the US representative managed not to realize the triple break point and missed his chance.

More such opportunities were not presented to him.

In the future, the American earned only one break point, but he did not use it either.

The Russian won all seven of the remaining games on his serve, with three - under zero.

The second racket of the planet constantly strained the opponent and clung to every rally.

After he held out and saved the fourth game, Medvedev took Riley's serve and took the lead himself.

The favorite was not going to miss such an advantage and confidently gave the opponent a shot - 6: 4.

In the third and ninth games of the second set, the domestic tennis player made two more breaks and took the game with a score of 6: 3.

Thus, the final dragged on for only an hour and 25 minutes.

This victory at the Masters series tournament was Medvedev's fourth in his career.

At the same time, he has only one defeat in the decisive match.

In 2019, he lost to Rafael Nadal in Montreal - 3: 6, 0: 6.

Since then, he has only won.

In the same year, he had no equal in Cincinnati and Shanghai, and in 2020 - in Paris.

The native of Moscow has won the 12th title in his career (11 of them are hard) and the third this year.

But earlier he managed to win only two modest 250 Series tournaments in Mallorca and Marseille.

A few hours after the victory, Daniel posted on his Instagram page a photo with a cup and 12 signature with a trophy emoji.

ATP press office reacted by leaving the comment “excellent job”.

It is curious that on the eve of the final they joked about the athlete there, having laid out a cut with funny moments with the participation of the second racket of the planet, and he himself was called "a machine for creating memes."

Thanks to his success in Canada, the Russian brought his statistics of victories and defeats in the 2021 season to 37: 9 (on hard - 25: 4).

The indicator of 80% wins for him is the best in his career, albeit an intermediate one.

Medvedev also became the first Russian in 21 years to win the Masters in Toronto.

In 2000, Marat Safin did it.

At the same time, we must admit that he was frankly lucky with the grid, because on his way he did not meet a single opponent from the top 10 of the ATP rating.

All opponents were within his power, although the confrontation with Alexander Bublik and Hubert Khurkach dragged on for three sets.

“Once I could not even dream of such a thing.

Winning the Masters seemed like an impossible feat, especially with the participation of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

Now I have won four out of five finals, which is a great score.

I'm just happy and want to achieve more.

I am very glad that I was able to do this in Canada, ”the official website of the ATP quoted Medvedev as saying.

He managed to close the gap with Djokovic in the ranking to 1493 points.

The Russian will try to get even closer to the leader in Cincinnati, where he is seeded under the first number.

This will give him the opportunity to skip the starting circle.

In the second, Medvedev will play with one of the American players who received a wild card from the organizers, and in the third he can meet with Bautista-Agut, to whom he lost all three meetings in his career.