Daniil Medvedev seemed to have something to prove when the Russian got his preparations for defending his U.S. Open championship back on track with a victory against Botic van de Zandschulp in the second round of the Cincinnati Open on Tuesday. MEDVEDEV defeated van de Zandschulp by scores of 6-4 and 7-5.
Medvedev had been gaining momentum leading up to the last Grand Slam tournament of the year at Flushing Meadows by winning a tune-up event in Los Cabos without losing a set. However, last week in the second round of the Canadian Masters in Montreal, he was defeated by Nick Kyrgios.
In his match against the Dutchman Van de Zandschulp, the Russian got off to a solid start by gaining an early break and went on to win the opening set.
The second set was a greater challenge than the first, as the number one player in the world was forced to save a set point. However, he was able to capitalise on multiple double faults committed by Van de Zandschulp before winning the match.
During an on-court interview, Medvedev said that the second set was not going all that poorly for him. He committed a significant number of double faults during the match, which was not one of his better serving performances. So I attempted to maintain the pressure and make the most of my opportunities.
“Two breaks are all you need to win on these fast courts, and I could have done a little bit better with my serve.” However, the first match is challenging, and I’m glad that I was able to get through it. Going forward, I intend to improve my performance in the subsequent bouts.
In the following round, Medvedev will compete against either the Canadian Denis Shapovalov or the American Tommy Paul.
After losing his cool during a 7-5, 6-4 victory against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Kyrgios swiftly recovered his calm and moved on to the second round, where he will play Taylor Fritz.
Kyrgios gave the impression of being in total command of the match when he won the first set with an unreturnable serve and took an early lead in the second set by going up a break.
But when the Spaniard evened the score at 2-2, it prompted the fiery Australian to hit the ball into the stands. It was a moment that brought back memories of Kyrgios’ victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas at Wimbledon, where the Greek did the same thing and Kyrgios unsuccessfully argued that he should be defaulted for it.
Kyrgios spoke to Fritzy as a “good buddy of mine” in his statement.
“He’s simply a tremendous player all around, and he’s got a monster serve,” she said. I can relate to his preference for playing on the front foot since I do the same thing. There are going to be a lot of really large servings, so we will have to see how things go.
Earlier in the day, Fritz defeated Argentine Sebastian Baez thanks to his strong serving and aggressive returns, which led in a 6-1, 6-1 triumph for Fritz.
The victory was the 33rd of the calendar year for the 11th seed, and it extended Baez’s current losing run to six matches.
Jannik Sinner of Italy, who was seeded tenth, won over Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia with a score of 6-7(9) 6-4 7-6(6) to increase his overall record to 37-10 for the year.
At the Masters 1000 tournament, other first-round matches included the following: an American named Paul defeated a fellow countryman named Jenson Brooksby 6-3 and 6-2; an Australian named Alex de Minaur defeated a Swiss player named Henri Laaksonen 6-2 and 6-2; a Croatian named Borna Coric defeated Lorenzo Musetti 7-6(2) and 6-3; and a Spanish named Albert Ramos-Vinolas defeated an Italian named Fabio Fognini.
