Daniil Medvedev continued his 2024 Dubai Championships campaign with a tremendous performance against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, winning in two sets.
The Spaniard doesn't like this matchup and generally hasn't fared that well against Medvedev. There is just something that bothers him quite a bit. Perhaps it's the return position that basically denied him any chances on his serve.
Perhaps it's the tremendous defense that he couldn't find a way to break through. He started with the right idea, baiting Medvedev forward with drop shots, and it worked well.
For some reason, he went away from that and tried to outlast him from the baseline, and it didn't work out. Medvedev was spetacular though. He was catching everything and was basically just too good.
The biggest issue for Davidovich Fokina was a lack of free points because of the lack of damage made from the serve. He didn't create any kind of pressure with it, and that's just a major problem.
Medvedev broke him twice in the opening set, the second time to close out the set 6-2 in his favor. The second set opened with an early break from Medvedev as the Spaniard simply couldn't overcome him.
He tried various things but ran into a wall with everything he tried. It didn't take long for frustration to properly kick in and there was no coming back for Davidovich Fokina.
He dropped his serve for a second time in the set, and from there, Medvedev just cruised to the finish line. He did stumble a bit but, for the most part, cruised comfortably.
The final score was 6-2 6-3 for the Russian, who looks as impressive as he did last year in Dubai. He obviously went all the way last year, and the way he's playing right now, it looks very likely that he'll do so again.