Used weak moments
Ice-cold Medvedev defeats Zverev in ATP finals
November 15, 2023, 11:27 p.m
“It feels like” he always plays against Medvedev, says Olympic champion Zverev. At the ATP finals he suffered an unnecessary defeat against his feared opponent. Now he has to worry about the semi-finals.
Alexander Zverev missed an early entry into the semi-finals of the ATP Finals. The Olympic tennis champion lost in the evening against the Russian Daniil Medvedev 6:7 (7:9), 4:6 and suffered his first defeat in Turin. In his opening match on Monday, Zverev prevailed in three sets against Wimbledon winner Carlos Alcaraz from Spain.
Medvedev, however, is already in the semi-finals after his second victory. The world number three converted her first match point after 1:45 hours. Alcaraz had previously won 7:5, 6:2 against the Russian Andrei Rublyov, largely effortlessly, and thus celebrated his first ever win at the ATP Finals. The decision about moving forward will now be made on Friday. Then Zverev has to deal with Rublev, who has already been eliminated. If he wins, the 26-year-old will reach the semi-finals. Otherwise it depends on the outcome of the game between Medvedev and Alcaraz.
Improvement after a weak start
Zverev and Medvedev faced each other for the 18th time at the Pala Alpitour. “I always feel like I’m playing against him,” the Olympic champion had previously said. It was the fifth comparison in the annual conclusion of the eight best players of the season alone. Two years ago, Zverev and Medvedev met twice in Turin. In the group stage, Medvedev won in three sets, but in the final Zverev prevailed in two sets and won the title at the ATP Finals for the second time. This time Zverev got off to a weak start and immediately gave up his first service game. The German number one didn’t seem completely alert at the beginning and made too many mistakes. Zverev only improved towards the middle of the sentence, but from then on he was fully there. Zverev played aggressively, went to the net more often than usual and constantly put Medvedev under pressure.
In the tiebreak, Zverev quickly moved ahead to 4-1. But then he made a very slight volley error that brought Medvedev back into the set. Nevertheless, Zverev won two set points, but he was unable to use them. Instead, the Russian won the first round in his first attempt after just over an hour. Zverev and Medvedev were also equal in the second set. When the score was 4:4, Zverev missed a break point and in the decisive phase he again had a few lapses in concentration. As so often, Medvedev took advantage of this coldly and took his 11th victory in the 18th duel with Zverev.