Warm-up under pressure: Medvedev defeated Giron in the first round of the Australian Open

Daniil Medvedev approached the first Grand Slam tournament of the year in decent shape.

At the competitions preceding the Australian Open, the Russian looked more than worthy.

First, he made it to the decisive match in Riyadh, where he lost to Taylor Fritz in tie-breaks.

And then he reached the semi-finals in Adelaide, one by one removing Lorenzo Sonego, Miomir Ketsmanovich and Karen Khachanov from his path.

Not allowed to get to the match for the title of the eighth racket of the world only Novak Djokovic.

But the Muscovite a little later defeated the eminent Serb in an exhibition meeting, which was of a charitable nature - 6:4.

The lesson was supposed to last 75 minutes, but the Serb left the court ahead of schedule due to a hip injury.

The only fly in the ointment for Medvedev was the loss of the title of the country's strongest tennis player.

After losing to Djokovic, Andrey Rublev overtook him in the ATP rankings.

However, experts still call Daniil one of the main favorites of AO, and he himself admitted that he was eager to confirm this status.

“In general, it’s good if people consider me a favorite.

I have worked all my life to become one of the best players in the world, and therefore I am glad that I am now one of them.

I love coming to Australia, and even in a sense I feel at home here, ”the official website of the tournament quotes Medvedev as saying.

In the very first round, he was waiting for a retracting game against Marcos Giron, who was noticeably inferior in class.

The American never grabbed the stars from the sky, but managed to climb to 56th place in the world ranking table.

He mostly pleased the fans at home: he reached the final in San Diego and played in the semi-finals in Dallas.

Marcos also climbed into the top eight in Mallorca, Acapulco and Vienna, and at the beginning of 2023 he repeated this achievement in Auckland.

At TBSH, things were much sadder.

The 29-year-old athlete made it to the third round only once, and in Australia he invariably flew out in the first.

At the same time, they had met with Medvedev only once before.

In 2020, Daniil turned out to be stronger in one of the opening matches of the Masters in Cincinnati.

However, if then Giron managed to impose at least a semblance of a struggle, then this time everything turned out quite unsuccessfully for him.

At the same time, it is difficult to blame an American for a lack of desire and dedication.

Moreover, in some moments he could well have achieved more.

In the first set, he did not take a game, although he did not look so hopeless.

What is at least a marathon second game, which lasted more than ten minutes.

The American managed to win back five break points, but still lost.

And on the contrary, he did not take advantage of his chances to serve a venerable opponent, for example, he was unable to win the rally twice with a single blow at a score of 4:0.

But in general, the Russian looked much more solid and calmly outplayed his opponent without putting any extra effort.

The second game visually turned out to be even simpler and faster for him, although Giron soaked the score - 6:1.

But he did not complete a single ace, and finally turned out to be broken in the fourth game, when he lost in a protracted shootout on the back line of several dozen hits and allowed Daniil to make another break.

In the final set, Marcos, to his credit, managed to impose a fight on the favorite, although his position was almost hopeless.

First of all, we managed to establish our own supply.

As a result, at the start, the American took two games at once.

Moreover, with a score of 2:2, he led 30:0, but lost the advantage and allowed Medvedev to take the lead.

The main intrigue was whether the American would be able to make a debut break and complicate the life of the Russian.

It turned out to be as close as possible to this, but again, the very smallness was not enough.

For example, in the final game Daniil played two break points at once and put an end to the confrontation.

However, Medvedev would not have been himself if he had not given vent to his emotions even in such a meeting.

In the end, the Russian was dissatisfied with the shout from the stands during the draws and cursed obscenely at one of the fans and received a warning.

He also expressed dissatisfaction in a conversation with the judge.

Otherwise, we can state that for Daniil the match turned into a gentle warm-up with light pressure.

Most importantly, he did without damage and won the victory in just an hour and a half.

The next opponent of the Russian will be the owner of the courts, John Millman, who survived in a five-set standing with Marc-Andrea Huesler.

Did not experience any problems in the first round match and Karen Khachanov.

He beat the little-known Bernabé Zapata-Miralles in three sets.

The struggle began only in the first, which ended in a tie-break.

In subsequent Spaniard took only two games.

And Roman Safiullin was lucky at all.

He was supposed to face the strongest Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, but he withdrew due to a knee injury.

This should make life easier for Rublev, who could meet Kiryos in the fourth round.

The Russians on the starting day, on the contrary, mostly upset the fans.

Anna Kalinskaya and Anna Blinkova won the second sets against seeded Americans Danielle Collins and Madison Keys, but were forced to concede and ended their performance in Melbourne.

Polina Kudermetova and Kamilla Rakhimova also covered rackets.

But 18-year-old Diana Schneider was pleasantly surprised.

She turned out to be stronger than Kristina Kuchova and for the first time in her career made it to the second round of the TBSH, where she will play with Maria Sakkari.