CWith 19 victories without failure in the last month, all of them on hard surfaces, spread over three continents and four different countries, no one can stop, for the moment, Daniil Medvedev.
The Russian, who on February 6 was twelfth in the ATP ranking, He will start fifth when the world rankings are published. Medvedev, despite having repeatedly complained about the slowness of the Indian Wells tracks, has ended up adapting to them.
The Muscovite has given a good account this Saturday of the local Frances Tiafoe by 7-5 and 7-6(4). The American, who had mathematical options to debut in the ‘top10’ in the event of a title, hit the same stone again.
And it is that they are already five defeats against the same executioner in as many confrontations. The two semifinalists entered the game with only one thing in common: they were rookies at this point in the tournament.
Tiafoe stood up to the eleventh game of the initial sleeve. He had saved before, at 3-2, three ‘break’ balls against. He couldn’t with the fourth because of the reflexes of Gilles Cervara’s pupil.
The Yankee was joking throwing a ball to his executioner when they crossed the net in the direction of the substitution chair.
Daniil had a clear strategy: Backhand shots from your opponent where you have a clear hole. He only lost three points in the first set.
His long shadow was frightening to the point of silencing the Tennis Garden center-back stands who obviously preferred their player’s triumph.
The winner did not relax in the continuation adding a break with a right passer that was a declaration of intent. He was on the highway heading into his seventh Masters 1000 final.
Seven lost final balls
Frances, with nothing to lose and on the attack, he rejoined the game with his first ‘break’ in the tenth game when Medvedev served for the final. He would go into sudden death alive after knocking out as many as seven elimination points at 6-5 down. He died on the shore, but he proved that the Russian is human.
Tiafoe’s defeat officially leaves Rafael Nadal in thirteenth place in the ranking which will be updated next monday.
Medvedev, if he lifts the champion’s trophy tomorrow, would equal the streak of consecutive victories he signed between 2020-21. In the final he will face the winner of the duel between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the two standard bearers of the new generation.
The last player to collect four crowns in five weeks was Andy Murray in 2016 when he won in a run at Beijing, Shanghai, Vienna and Paris-Bercy.
Before the creation of the ATP circuit, Ivan Lendl took five titles in five weeks in 1981: Madrid, Barcelona, Basel, Vienna and Cologne.
