Medvedev Secures Extended Stay As No. 1 By Reaching Los Cabos Final

Daniil Medvedev guaranteed his stay atop the Pepperstone ATP Rankings until at least the end of the US Open by reaching the final at the Abierto de Tenis Mifel on Saturday night in Los Cabos.

In his second stint as World No. 1, Medvedev advanced to his fourth final of the season with a 7-6(0), 6-1 win against fourth seed Miomir Kecmanovic. He will face defending champion Cameron Norrie in Saturday’s final as he seeks his first title of 2022. 

“Very tough match,” Medvedev said in his on-court interview. “He started great and all the first set was a great level. So many tough points, so many points where I felt like I was close to getting the edge. The tie-break was great.”

Kecmanovic came out firing and held a 4-1 lead after saving the first break point against him. The Serbian was fully comfortable in his third semi-final of the year, and he showed it with an array of drop shots, including a three-shot combo in which he casually hit a drop shot, a volley lob and a drop volley to frustrate his opponent.

But Medvedev began to find his groove midway though the opening set, settling in with his metronomic baseline brilliance as he began to control the rallies. He was at his scrambling best early in the tie-break, following up strong defense with a flicked backhand pass as he asked for more noise from the Mexican crowd.

“I’m not the kind of guy to ask [for the crowd to cheer] like this,” he said with a laugh. “I made a great point, so I thought, ‘This one was good, let’s try to pump it up a little bit.'”

After racing through the shutout tie-break, he stayed on the attack to build a 3-0 lead in the second set. He secured a second break late in the set as Kecmanovic began to fade, then hit two well-placed volleys on match point to seal the victory.

Medvedev improved to 2-0 in his ATPHead2Head against the Serbian, backing up his Roland Garros third-round win in May. He also prevailed in his only previous tour-level meeting with his final opponent Norrie, a straight-sets win at the Rolex Shanghai Masters in 2019. The Briton moved within one win of defending his Los Cabos crown with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 semi-final victory against second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime.