Two of the top three seeds–and each of the top two in the top half of the draw–crashed out of the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament on Wednesday.
An afternoon of upsets began with Alexander Zverev’s loss to Alexander Bublik. Zverev, who won back-to-back indoor titles last fall in Cologne, was bounced out by Bublik via a 7-5, 6-3 decision. The 43rd-ranked Kazakh was coming off a runner-up performance in Singapore and remained in fine form by prevailing in one hour and 17 minutes.
“Beating Sascha is great,” Bublik assured. “There were ups and downs for both of us throughout the match, I got a bit lucky and I was perhaps a little more consistent. I’m just enjoying playing matches right now.”
No. 1 seed Daniil Medvedev also exited in straight sets, losing 7-6(4), 6-4 to Dusan Lajovic after one hour and 35 minutes of play. Medvedev imploded mentally following a close first set en route to his second loss in three matches against Lajovic.
“I think I was very focused the whole match and not influenced by his good serves and shots,” the Serb explained. “I knew if I stayed in the match, I’d get my opportunities and change the rhythm.”
Medvedev, on the other hand, was anything but focused. The Australian Open runner-up was in a bizarre mode the entire day, culminating in a point penalty to begin the final game of the match.
Medvedev would have become No. 2 in the world if he had reached the Rotterdam final. Instead, the Russian will remain in the third spot behind Rafael Nadal.
weird results
Nobody ever seems to take Rotterdam seriously apart from Monfils.
What’s the deal on the Med no look,,,,and Bublik has a LOT of physical talent!
Let’s call it what is- it’s blatant lack of effort, i.e lack of integrity and professionalism. I won’t speak of Zverev- he legitimately is a bi-polar head case when it comes to his play.
But Medvedev should be fined. He loafed from start to finish. Before that first set even got to the tiebreak, I could clearly see what was going on. If I had been back in my home state and been able to live bet Lajovic money line when it was at 5-5, I would have. Medvedev was playing like this not long before the season started- and then bam, just before the AO begins, he turns on the switch. These clowns shouldn’t be allowed to collect a paycheck in these lower profile tournaments if they’re going to be no better than Kyrgios walking off the court in the midst of a volley. I’d go so far to say Mev should be investigated for match fixing.