Daniil Medvedev triumphs in Tokyo after playing a remarkable tournament.
The Russian was coming straight from the qualifications to drop only 1 set in 7 matches defeating on the way top players such as Milos Raonic, Deni Shapovalov, and Kei Nishikori.
The final against Nishikori
The Japanese was eager to interrupt his 7-finals losing streak in the home tournament, but Daniil was remarkable especially on his serve. In fact, after a little struggle in the 1st game, the Russian won 5 consecutive service games at love (20 points in a row). Even more impressing, from the 2nd game of the opening set he dropped only 1 point in 6 games before winning the opener 6-2.
Nishikori managed to offer a better opposition in the 2nd set, but he was always battling on his service games while the Russian dropped only 1 point on serve for the entire 2nd set. Eventually, Medvedev conquered the decisive break in the 19th game before winning 6-2 6-4 in just 63 minutes.
This is Daniil’s 3rd career title after Sydney and Winton-Salem (all of them won in 2018).
After this week, the Russian will be ranked no.22.
I was playing amazing. MEDVEDEV
After the match, Daniil commented
“I was playing amazing, and I am so happy to come out on top.
To play seven matches and losing only one set, this makes me extremely happy. “The serve is the most important thing in tennis right now.”
From Nishikori
Kei commented
“He’s serving great. I didn’t have any chance on his first serve, even second serve,” “His ball was skipping a lot on this surface, and he was hitting good enough flat shots and he was serving great, so it was tough to play against Daniil today.
It’s been a great couple months. After the US Open, I think I’ve been playing well,” he added. I’ve got to keep playing the same in Shanghai.”
3RD CAREER TITLE
|
| Embed from Getty Images |
