Daniil Medvedev took on a former compatriot of his, Alexander Shevchenko, and bested him comfortably in two sets at the 2024 Dubai Championships.
The Russian is an amazing player, but he sometimes struggles to keep the same level throughout the match, which often costs him not just match wins but also valuable energy, which ultimately cost him his second Grand Slam title in Melbourne.
His style will always be quite loose, but sometimes it's a bit too much. The opening set of his match at the Dubai Championships went quite smoothly after more than a month away from the tennis courts.
Shevchenko is a tricky matchup for Medvedev, but the Russian is an even worse matchup for him. He stands behind the baseline and gets any balls back, which the aggressive Shevchenko doesn't appreciate.
He likes to attack but doesn't always do it well and is prone to missing a lot. Just look at what happened in the second set. In the first set, Shevchenko missed plenty as well, falling behind 2-5 and then breaking back to make it 5-3 but then losing his serve once more to lose the opening set 3-6.
Too much of a loose play by Medvedev allowed the Kazakhstani player to break in the first set and take the lead. He was up 5-3 but then got broken when he served for the match at 5-4.
He was broken once more at 6-5 for Medvedev to seal the match for the Russian, 6-3, 7-5, and most of it came as the youngster wasn't able to really hit the ball the way he wanted to.
Medvedev just stood back and pounced when he finally saw a chance. It was a good win for him but far from perfect. He finished with 11 winners less than his opponent but also had five unforced errors, which ultimately proved vital, especially since most of them came rather late.