Medvedev wins first title of 2023 and returns to Top 10
ATP
Daniil Medvedev is back at his best and he showed it at the 2023 Rotterdam Open, winning the trophy at the ATP 500 event.
After last year's surgery, Medvedev surprisingly lost already in the third round of the Australian Open but quickly got back to a winning mood after the first major of the season.
He signed up for the 2023 Rotterdam Open and defeated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Botic van de Zandschulp, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Grigor Dimitrov on his way to the final.
Maybe the biggest challenge awaited him in the final, as Jannik Sinner showed superb form in the Rotterdam Ahoy Arena, and he was on a seven-match winning streak, after previously triumphing in Montpellier.
The Italian was a better player in the first set. He hit 14 winners and troubled his opponent on his serve. Medvedev had a game point to send the first set into a tie-break, but he couldn't use it as Sinner won three consecutive points on his serve to win the first set 7-5.
But Medvedev knows how to play big matches and he showed it once again. In the second and third sets, he hit 74% of his first serves, and that was one of the reasons why he saved all four break points that his opponent had in these two sets.
Moreover, he started returning better, too, and he used four out of ten break points that he had. He used two of them in the second set, establishing a 4-1 lead, which he protected by saving three break points, winning the set 6-2.
In the third set, he used two more break points, once again saving some himself, to eventually win the match 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 in two hours and 31 minutes.
Medvedev won his first title of the 2023 season and he will also return to the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings, as he'll jump to the eighth position.
