It's all come down to this, the final matchup at the 2024 Australian Open, a battle between Daniil Medvedev and Jannik Sinner.
When we look at this event so far, it's been clear that these two have been among the best two players. If you would rank all the semi-finalists by virtue of who played the best tennis, you might say that these two wouldn't be number one and two, but they won their semi-final matches, and that's all that matters.
Sinner proved once again to be a huge problem for Novak Djokovic, beating him in four sets 6-1 6-2 6-7(6) 6-3. It wasn't a good match by Djokovic, who lamented his poor performance after the match, but credit still goes to Sinner for taking advantage of that bad performance.
Medvedev survived yet another close match, beating Alexander Zverev 5-7 3-6 7-6(4) 7-6(5) 6-3. It was the third match in this event in which Medvedev survived a five-set battle, which is notable.
He could have lost all three, but especially the match against the German, which looked lost in the fourth set when he was down 4-5 in the tiebreak with two Zverev's serves coming up.
Head-to-head:
The matchup with Sinner won't be easy for Medvedev, even though he leads it 6-3 overall. Quite a few of them were very close, but the most important thing to note from their previous matches is the recent trend.
Sinner and Medvedev played five matches in 2023, and Sinner won 3 of those. None of that might be surprising, but he won the three most recent matches, which is the important part to note.
Two of those were finals, and one was a semi-final. In Beijing, Sinner beat Medvedev 7-6(2) 7-6(2). In Vienna, it was 7-6(7) 4-6 6-3 for Sinner, while at the ATP Finals, the Italian won 6-3 6-7(4) 6-1.
| Daniil Medvedev | Jannik Sinner | |
| 6 | H2H | 3 |
| 3 | Rank | 4 |
| 27 | Age | 22 |
| 6-0 | 2024 W/L | 6-0 |
| 339-136 | Career W/L | 196-74 |
Prediction:
When we look at the trend, we see that Sinner has found good solutions against Medvedev lately. It coincides with him going up a level in recent months, a level that he's even improved upon in Melbourne. With that and simply the fact that he can produce a crazy shot at any moment, he must be the clear pick here.
Prediction: Jannik Sinner to win in four sets.
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