Daniil Medvedev is into his second consecutive Masters final with a win over world No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Saturday evening at the Western & Southern Open.
Djokovic was the heavy favorite to lift his second Cincinnati title after Roger Federer suffered an early exit at the hands of Andrey Rublev. And indeed, for a set and a half, it appeared that the Serb would breeze through his semifinal against Medvedev in straight sets. But Medvedev made a mid-match change in strategy that left Djokovic outplayed and a bit bemused.
The first set was business as usual for Djokovic. He pounced on Medvedev’s second serve, so that the underdog won a miserable 36 percent of points on his second serve. One opportunistic break for Djokovic and the set was over. Things appeared to be headed the same way through the sixth game of the second set. That’s when Medvedev decided a change was in order.
“I was standing there before my second serve, and I was, like, I’m losing literally”, the Russian said. “I don’t know the percentage I had, but in my opinion I had, like, 20% the second service won. Especially in the crucial moments he was pushing me. So I say, If I do one double-fault it won’t change my life. Same result. But if I put it in, it’s maybe going to be an ace, and I actually made a good decision to do it like this.”
It was a tactic he would employ for the rest of the match. His reward for the risk was five second-serve aces and a trip to the final.
When asked about Medvedev’s sudden change of game plan, Djokovic mused, “You can’t really predict someone or prepare yourself for someone serving that big second serve consistently from 4-3 to the end of the match with making maybe two double faults out of God knows how many serves.”
And when asked about improvements to Medvedev’s game, Djokovic said, “I don’t think I can kind of say that he improved his second serve. You know, he was serving two first serves from one point of the match till the end of the match.”
The win over Djokovic puts Medvedev into his third final in as many weeks on the North American hard courts. He lost in the final of Washington D.C. to Nick Kyrgios and last week in Montreal to Rafael Nadal. He will take on David Goffin on Sunday for the Cincinnati title.
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Med is ON FIRE
Med will win Slams…