If ever a straight-set victory could be considered one of the comeback variety, it was Jan-Lennard Struff’s over Daniil Medvedev in the Wimbledon third round on Friday.
Struff recovered from a break deficit in every set — including a double-break in the third — to defeat Medvedev 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 7-5 after two hours and 49 minutes. The 36-year-old was serving at 1-3, 0-30 in the opening set, faced a deficit of 2-5, 0-15 while serving in the second, and found himself one point from getting blown out in the third when Medvedev served for it at 5-2, 40-15. Somehow, the 30-year-old Russian lost all three of those sets.
“(It’s) disappointing to lose this way,” Medvedev admitted. “(I was a) break up in all the sets. It’s about finding solutions during the match to win, and I didn’t find the right ones — and I lost… I should do better. I didn’t manage to serve exactly the way I wanted. I didn’t manage to play the way I wanted in the tiebreaks.”
For Struff, tiebreakers have been a huge part of his current run at the All-England Club. The German preceded his upset of Medvedev with a marathon five-setter against Brandon Nakashima in which he won all three of his sets in ‘breakers en route to a 4-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(5), 6-7(6), 7-6(7) victory. Stuff had not broken serve in the entire match until Nakashima served for the win at 5-4 in the fifth. The American also led 7-4 in the ensuing super-tiebreaker only to see Struff reel off the final six points of the contest in succession.
Struff’s reward is a spot in an all-unseeded fourth-round showdown against 2021 semifinalist Hubert Hurakacz. Their head-to-head series is all tied up 2-2, with Struff taking their only previous grass-court encounter 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 at the 2023 Stuttgart tournament.
“Struff is a very dangerous player,” Hurkacz assured. “He’s very aggressive (and) has a powerful game style. Yeah, it’s very challenging to play against him.”
Medvedev and Nakashima — both of whom seemingly had Struff down and out at times — would certainly agree.
nice one, Struff