After the unsuccessful end of last season and a dubious performance at the Australian Open 2023, Medvedev is reviving his game.

February for the former first racket of the world was very promising. In 14 days he won the tournament in Doha and Rotterdam, and now dominates the prestigious masters in Dubai.

Now Dana is not afraid of even the great Djokovic. With the first racket of the world, he finished in an hour and a half.

sad statistics

No matter what state the Russian is in, meetings with Djokovic turn into a test for him. And in the last year with a sad outcome

In October 2022, it seemed to many that Danya would be able to beat Novak in the Astana Open semi-finals, but after losing the tie-break of the second set, our athlete withdrew due to injury with a 1-1 score in sets.

A month later, they met each other again at the ATP Final Tournament, where the iron Serb, with experience and composure, took the match in the decisive tie-break.

This season also started awkwardly for the Russian: one step away from the final in Adelaide, the 35-year-old Nole easily got rid of his opponent, surpassing Danya in two sets without much struggle.

The last success of our tennis player was at the US Open 2021, the triumph at which is remembered rather as a distant past. All recent victories in the assets of Djokovic.

Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic / Photo: © Matthew Stockman / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Too easy

In addition to the statistics in personal meetings before this match, there seemed to be a more serious advantage on the side of Novak.

The Serbian, having won the first Grand Slam tournament of the season, showed his resilience to the whole world. In Australia, even with an injury, he crushed opponents without mercy, and the winning streak by the time of the meeting with Medvedev had reached 20 games. How to beat such a Novak?

The only thing that gave me hope was Dani’s current progress with 13 unbeaten matches. And one more small nuance: the Russian won all his four victories over the Serb when Novak was on the first line of the ATP rating.

Surprisingly, all this extensive statistical layout was not needed at the start of the meeting. Danya used Novak’s blots with apparent ease and quickly closed the set (6:4).

Daniil Medvedev / Photo: © REUTERS / Amr Alfiky

Where is Novak?

There was a feeling that our tennis player is dealing with a good opponent from the top twenty rankings, but not with the legendary Djokovic. The Serb made a lot of mistakes, could not stand long rallies, which often ended in an out. Novak often used deep shots, but this time he seemed to lack the length of the court.

As usual, Novak cursed and argued with his team. And Danya, on the contrary, was focused and practically did not make unforced errors. Everything turned upside down in this match.

Novak Djokovic / Photo: © REUTERS / Amr Alfiky

The second set also became a cold shower for the Serbian fans. He lost his pitch at the start of the game and tried in vain to make a break. In the eighth game, with an equal score (4:3, 40:40), on his serve, Danya showed that everything was fine with his nerves and did not even let his opponent earn a break point.

Well, the most striking episode of the end of the match occurred in the last game with the score 30:30 (5:4). Novak tried to complete a long draw with a perfect diagonal shortened blow, which even seemed unlikely to catch up. However, Medvedev ran and answered with a stunning twisted shot under the net.

At that moment, the audience finally realized: the Russian, speaking from the position of the second number before the start of the meeting, simply knocked out Novak. In a post-match interview, Danya honestly noted that Djokovic did not have the best game today. It’s hard to argue with that, but it’s even harder to doubt Medvedev’s strength.

Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev / Photo: © REUTERS / Amr Alfiky

It seems that he has risen from the unfortunate ending of last year and goes for the third title in a row. Ahead of the Russian final Rublev – Medvedev, unique for the tournament in Dubai.