It has been a bizarre Abierto Mexicano Telcel for multiple reasons, but Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas are doing their best to avoid the chaos.
Both players sauntered into the Acapulco quarterfinals on Wednesday, keeping open the possibility of a title match between the two bitter rivals. Medvedev eased past Pablo Andujar 6-1, 6-2 before Tsitsipas turned in an even more dominant 6-1, 6-0 performance at the expense of J.J. Wolf.
The second-ranked Russian will become No. 1 in the world on Monday if he equals or betters Novak Djokovic’s result in Dubai.
“I’m lucky two days in a row not to play at midnight like some other guys,” Medvedev commented. “It’s pretty tough conditions, quite humid. Even if we play at night it’s quite hot…, The faster the matches, the better you’re going to feel for the next one.”
Tsitsipas lost a grand total of 16 points while shellacking Wolf in just 48 minutes.
“I would say I was patiently attacking,” the fourth-ranked Greek assessed. “I wasn’t going for too much, but I also wasn’t going for too little. It felt great out there; it felt like I could control the points from both sides of the court and I felt very much in control throughout the entire match.
“My serve was working when I needed it. I just felt very comfortable with every single stroke and every single decision I had to make.”
Medvedev will meet Yoshihito Nishioka in the quarterfinals, while Tsitsipas awaits Marcos Giron.
nice one, Tsitsi
Congrats to Meddy, the new ATP #1. How long can he hold onto it? (Yes, unbelievably, Djoker lost to Vesely in Dubai). With the clay season fast approaching there may be frequent changes at the top.
Vesely played amazing
Vesely played amazing again yesterday, taking Shapo out in three 7-6 sets!
Congrats to Meddy indeedy!
The 2022 tennis season is just short of two months old – but it has been a batsh.t crazy ride so far. After 18 years of the Big Four ruling exclusively over the top ranking spot, we finally have a brandnew No 1! Medvedev’s rise to the top spot wasn’t a surprise per se. But who could have predicted that it would come so soon, because the long term reigning and soon to be demoted No 1 would be deported and therefore couldn’t defend any of his 2000 AO ranking points – and then he would lose in Dubai, where except for Djokovic, none of the top guns participated, to a player not even ranked in the top 100??
Anyway, congrats to Meddy! He sort of earned it, and it might soften the blow a bit of losing that AO final. And Djkovic’s unexpected loss to Vesely might put to rest all voices who claimed that Novak would have defended his AO title for sure, if he had only been allowed to participate. That was never a given!
And now Rafa has beaten the freshly minted No 1 again – on a hardcourt which is allegedly perfect for Medvedev’s style of play. And it’s highly unlikely that nerves and pressure had a great impact on the outcome. After winning his record breaking 21st slam Rafa could fly to Acapulco and have some fun oncourt and also offcourt with cute baby turtles, while Medvedev had the No1 position already in the bag before his match against Rafa.
It’s getting harder and harder to argue that Rafa’s victory in Melbourne was just a fluke, and that he was only able to win because of a plethora of lucky coincidences.
Ricky:
“It has been a bizarre Abierto Mexicano Telcel for multiple reasons, but Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas are doing their best to avoid the chaos.
Both players sauntered into the Acapulco quarterfinals on Wednesday, keeping open the possibility of a title match between the two bitter rivals.”
Lol
Neither of them made the final.
not sure what your point is….