Daniil Medvedev on Saturday continued his impressive form with a win 6-2, 6-2 over compatriot Andrey Rublev in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final, claiming his third title in three weeks.
Defending champion Rublev, bidding for a second straight title in Dubai, was unable to put up much resistance as he did not have a single break point during a battle between childhood friends that lasted just more than an hour.
Medvedev, who entered the final having not dropped a set this week and ended Novak Djokovic’s unbeaten run in the semi-finals, added to last month’s titles in Doha and Rotterdam to take his tally to 19 tour-level titles.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It is amazing because at the start of the year, it was not perfect. In tennis when you don’t win matches you have doubts. Now it just feels better,” Medvedev said.
“I was really happy with these three weeks and I am looking forward to the next ones,” he said.
“I know Andrey can cause a lot of trouble to everyone on tour. Every time we play he tries to make me suffer, I try to make him suffer. Today I managed to be on top, but the next match could be a different story,” he added.
The 27-year-old, who sent down nine aces and converted 57 percent of the breakpoints he won in the final, moves to sixth in the ATP rankings, while Rublev drops to seventh.
“I think it’s a good thing for Daniil that he’s doing this, for his career, for his life, that he’s achieving those things. Three titles in a row, it’s unreal. What else to say?” Rublev told a post-match news conference.
Former US Open champion Medvedev next travels to the US, where he would seek to continue his winning run at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, from March 19 to April 2.
In Acapulco, Australia’s Alex de Minaur defeated Tommy Paul of the US in three sets to win the Mexican Open.
The 24-year-old de Minaur fought back after dropping the opening set to clinch the seventh title of his professional career with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory.
The win was the seventh title of de Minaur’s career and his first in an ATP 500 event.
“It feels great, it feels amazing,” De Minaur said in an on-court interview following his win.
De Minaur’s dogged performance was epitomized by the opening game of the final set, when he saved five break points to hold before winning in 2 hours, 27 minutes.
Additional reporting by AFP
Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying on Saturday crashed out of the BWF All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, with South Korea’s Se Young-an denying the world No. 3 Tai a chance at a fourth All England title. In a replay of their semi-final showdown last year, the world No. 2 Se again beat Tai, saving four match points in a thrilling deciding game to prevail 17-21, 21-19, 24-22. Tai won the women’s singles title in Birmingham in 2017, 2018 and 2020. In the three times the two superstars faced each other prior to Saturday, Tai, 22, had only come out on top once, when
California-born Lars Nootbaar had never played for Japan before the World Baseball Classic, but he has become so popular in his adopted country that sales of pepper mills have shot up in tribute to his trademark celebration. The 25-year-old outfielder — the first player born outside Japan to represent the country at the tournament — mimics twisting a pepper mill after each hit to show he wants to “grind out” a win for his team. The celebration has become a smash hit during Japan’s games in Tokyo, with Nootbaar’s teammates jumping on the bandwagon and fans bringing pepper grinders to the stadium. Nootbaar
LAST ONE STANDING: The world No. 3 was the only Taiwanese left in the tournament, while there were upsets in the men’s singles and the women’s doubles Taiwanese badminton ace Tai Tzu-ying on Thursday defeated Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-19, 21-12 to reach the quarter-finals of the BWF All England Open in Birmingham. Tai, the world No. 3, needed only 40 minutes to close out the round-of-16 matchup at the Utilita Arena. In the opening game, the Taiwanese shuttler established an early 10-5 cushion, before an aggressive Ongbamrungphan fought her way back into the tie, winning nine straight points to take a 10-14 lead. The pair traded the lead to bring the scores to 18-19, but Tai held her nerve to close out the first game. After a 2-2 tie early in
When Taiwan lost to Cuba 7-1 at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on Sunday, it was an opportunity missed. A win would have sent the team to the quarter-finals in Tokyo. Instead, the loss gave Taiwan a 2-2 record, the same as the other four teams in Pool A, but they finished last because of tiebreakers. So, was the team’s performance a success or a failure? The 2-2 record would suggest somewhere in between, but two baseball experts, National Taiwan Sport University (NTSU) associate professor Kung Jung-tang and veteran commentator Tseng Wen-cheng, gave Taiwan’s WBC performance a resounding thumbs-up. “The team’s offensive showing was
RSS