Daniil Medvedev on Tuesday suffered a shock second-round defeat by French world No. 65 Jeremy Chardy at the Paris Masters, ending his bid to reach a seventh straight final, while fellow Russian Karen Khachanov’s title defense met a quick end.
Medvedev, who has climbed to world No. 4 after his brilliant run of form, took the opening set, but slipped to a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 loss at Bercy Arena.
Chardy, roared on by the home crowd in the French capital, saved nine break points in a dramatic deciding set to book a last-16 clash against either 15th seed John Isner or Chile’s Cristian Garin.
Medvedev’s run of finals dated back to July, during which he had claimed the Cincinnati and Shanghai Masters titles and lost an epic US Open championship match to Rafael Nadal.
The second-set loss ended a streak of 19 consecutive sets won by Medvedev, while the eventual loss snapped a nine-match winning run.
He appeared in control after breaking in the 10th game to seal the opener, but grew frustrated as Chardy hit back to level.
The fourth seed dominated for much of the third, but time and again Chardy held on, staving off three break points in the second game and four more in the fourth.
Medvedev cracked to trail 4-3, and while he carved out another break-point opportunity as Chardy served for the match, the qualifier recovered to close out victory.
Earlier, defending champion Khachanov lost 7-6 (7/5), 3-6, 7-5 to German Jan-Lennard Struff.
Khachanov beat four top-10 players, including Novak Djokovic in the final, to win last year’s tournament, but was knocked out after an indifferent second-round display this time around.
The early exit ends the world No. 8’s slim hopes of qualifying for next month’s ATP Tour Finals in London.
Struff, ranked 36th, is next to face either former Bercy winner Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Italian 10th seed Matteo Berrettini in the last 16.
Sixth seed Alexander Zverev boosted his hopes of qualifying for next month’s ATP Tour Finals, where he would be the defending champion, by swatting aside Fernando Verdasco 6-1, 6-3.
The 22-year-old, who holds the seventh and penultimate qualifying place, thrashed Verdasco in under an hour and is to take on either Canadian rising star Denis Shapovalov or Monte Carlo Masters winner Fabio Fognini in the third round.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS