Third seed Daniil Medvedev on Sunday claimed his first Paris Masters title at Bercy Arena by battling back from a set down to beat Germany’s Alexander Zverev.
The Russian was on top form in a high-quality encounter, winning 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 to secure his first trophy of the season and the eighth of his career.
“It’s great, I’m really happy. As I always say, I don’t always show this after matches, but I’m always happy to win,” said Medvedev after securing his third Masters title.
Photo: AFP
Both players now plan turn their attention to the ATP Tour Finals in London, an event won by Zverev in 2018.
Medvedev has had an up-and-down season, but was at his best this week in Paris, continuing his magnificent record on hard courts — all of his ATP titles have come on the surface.
“Before this tournament I wasn’t in great form, zero finals this year and I was crying, well complaining, to my wife: ‘Oh my God, I don’t have the level, not playing well, not even any finals,’” he said. “But now, three Masters titles, it’s great. I have had the level this week. I managed to keep the pressure on, and in the end I broke his level a little bit.”
Fourth seed Zverev, who was bidding for a third straight tournament victory after back-to-back successes on home soil in Cologne, remains without a Masters title since the 2018 Madrid Open after seeing his 12-match winning streak ended.
He has recently denied allegations from his ex-girlfriend Olga Sharypova that he tried to “strangle” her while at last year’s US Open.
Zverev hit out at those criticizing him after the match.
“I know that right now there are a lot of people who will be trying to wipe a smile off my face, but I’m still smiling under this mask,” Zverev said.
The 24-year-old Medvedev has won two of his last three matches against Zverev, having also beaten him in last year’s Shanghai Masters final, but still trails their head-to-head 5-2.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
Amanda Anisimova on Wednesday pulled off a stellar comeback to get the better of Iga Swiatek 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 6-2 and book her spot in the last four of the WTA Finals in Riyadh, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei won in the doubles at the women’s year-ending event. Making her tournament debut this week, the fourth-seeded Anisimova secured the runner-up spot in the Serena Williams Group behind Elena Rybakina. Rybakina completed round-robin play with a perfect 3-0 record, thanks to a 6-4, 6-4 success against Russian alternate Ekaterina Alexandrova earlier in the day. Anisimova improved her three-set record this season to an impressive
RSS