ATP finals in Turin: Zverev loses against Medvedev

Solid like a building by a master's hand, logically thought out in the style of a chess player, balanced like a tightrope artist and quickly recovered even after a little excursion into the world of anger - all that is Daniil Medvedev. The defending champion won in convincing form on Tuesday afternoon in Turin in the second game of the preliminary round of the ATP Finals against Alexander Zverev (6: 3, 6: 7, 7: 6). This gave him the best prospects of reaching the semi-finals at the tournament of the best, but the game is not over for Zverev either; with a win against Hubert Hurkacz from Poland on Thursday he would continue to be there.

Three movements, two tiebreaks, that sounds like a tight box, and that's how it was, at least after the first movement. At the beginning, Medvedev was the much more active, fresher-looking player, a model of efficiency. In the second set, Zverev came closer, risked more and served better and better, fended off three breakballs from the Russian and forced the first tiebreak. And it was a curious scene at the beginning that brought Medvedev briefly out of rhythm - after the call of a line judge “foot fault” on one of his serves, he requested video evidence and was clearly not happy with the way the matter was handled and decided .

The point went to Zverev, who won the tiebreak.

The rest of the game, the two met on the same level, Zverev now seemed much freer than at the beginning, and consequently the matter was decided again in the shootout.

He was quickly leading 4-2, but Medvedev struck back and snatched the victory with the third match point.

So far it's not going so bad for Russia's best tennis players in the last tournament week of the year.

Andrei Rublev had won against Stefanos Tsitsipas the day before in a similarly strong form as Medvedev and with a staggering service rate - although he almost slept through the game while taking a nap in the afternoon.

The Russian won't need an alarm clock for this Wednesday's encounter against Novak Djokovic;

the name of the opponent is enough.