Daniil Medvedev beat Alexander Zverev to advance to the quarterfinals of the 2023 Italian Open in Rome.
The two met already for the third time this season. It all started with the Russian's win at Indian Wells, and he even beat the German in a heated clash in Monte Carlo. Although Medvedev doesn't prefer the clay courts, he wanted to improve the H2H on the ATP Tour against Zverev even further in Rome.
Due to illogical scheduling, Zverev had certainly a small disadvantage going into the match, as he had to play a match earlier on the day, beating J.J. Wolf. It seemed that the two also forgot their previous spicy clash as Medvedev said that they talked about it and everything is fine.
Although many watched the match because of the handshake, both players delivered, despite a slow start from the German. Medvedev broke in the opening game and after adding one more break in the seventh game of the first set, he closed out the opening set on his serve, winning it 6-2.
The second set was much closer. Both players had multiple set points and they even traded breaks in the seventh and eighth game. After Zverev didn't use his set point in the tenth game, the second set reached a tie-break.
Medvedev didn't want to play the third set against the German and he showed it in the tie-break. The Russian was a better player, winning it 7-3 to reach his first Italian Open quarterfinals in his career.
Among the last eight, he will meet a tricky opponent. Qualifier Yannick Hanfmann stunned his good friend Andrey Rublev earlier on the day and Medvedev will surely ask his friend for some tips how to beat the German. After the match, Medvedev said:
"He started to play a bit better. We had some long games and I should’ve played better at 4-3 in set two. I should’ve done better at 40-0. I had a few easy errors, but that’s tennis.. happy with my level throughout the whole match except this game"
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