Medvedev’s Revenge: 2021 Champ Flips The Script Against De Minaur

Revenge tasted sweet for Daniil Medvedev on Monday evening at the US Open.

The third seed had lost two consecutive Lexus ATP Head2Head matches to 13th seed Alex de Minaur, including one last month in Toronto. But the 2021 US Open champion flipped the script inside Louis Armstrong Stadium, rallying for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 victory to reach the quarter-finals of the season’s final major.

The 27-year-old has now reached the last eight at Flushing Meadows in four of his past five appearances. Medvedev will try to make his fourth semi-final in New York when he plays close friend Andrey Rublev, against whom he has won five of seven tour-level clashes. 

With Medvedev’s victory, he also qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals for the fifth consecutive year.

De Minaur was in full control after the first set. Medvedev seemed to be out of sorts as he left the humid court to change and then received an inhaler from a tournament doctor. He had hit just three winners to 10 unforced errors in the opening set.

“Some people bear better with the heat, some people worse. I feel like I’m not the best one in this case. At the same time I feel like I fight many times through it quite well, so that’s kind of what happened today,” Medvedev said. “I managed to raise my level. It was an amazing last three sets, so really happy. Hope I can play the same way going further.”

But the entire tone of the match changed on a tweener early in the second set. The 20-time tour-level champion rarely uses the shot, but did so successfully and eventually won the point. From then on, Medvedev raised his level and the clash was no longer in De Minaur’s control. Instead of misfiring often, Medvedev became comfortable rallying with his gritty 24-year-old opponent.

“It’s very rare that I do a tweener and I make it in. Against [Sebastian] Baez I made one and I almost won the point,” Medvedev said. “I many times also don’t go for the tweener because usually you have the chance to make a lob and get back into the point or something like this. I’m not a huge fan of tweener, even if in practice I do it a little bit more for fun.

“Here I felt like it was a good opportunity to do it. I was a little bit late. I just went for it. To win it, the crowd cheers you on.”

De Minaur fought until the end as he always does. But once the Australian failed to convert a break point in his first return game of the fourth set, Medvedev, who often hung an ice towel over his head like a horseshoe during changeovers, surged to victory. The third seed broke serve in the next game and never relinquished his advantage.

Medvedev converted five of his 10 break points and won 41 per cent of his receiving points, consistently putting pressure on this year’s Acapulco champion. He now leads De Minaur 5-2 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head.