Tennis News – Van Rijthoven captures shock title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Medvedev still goes to No. 1

By Ricky Dimon

Daniil Medvedev will grab the No. 1 ranking for the second time in his career on Monday.

But he wasn’t the story on Sunday.

For now, headlines belong to none other than 25-year-old Dutchman Tim van Rijthoven. Ranked No. 205, Van Rijthoven was playing in just the second ATP-level main draw of his entire career and he had never won a single ATP match prior to this week. The rest is history, as the hometown hero treated the Dutch crowd to win after win at the Libema Open–culminating in a 6-4, 6-1 triumph over Medvedev in Sunday’s final.

“This is new for me,” Van Rijthoven said at the trophy ceremony. “It’s going to take some time getting used to. What a dream this week. I would like to thank my team for staying humble this week, doing the normal things, not making this thing any bigger than it was.

“I would like to thank all of you. Your support was incredible this week.”

“Amazing week,” Medvedev told his opponent. “(You) destroyed the No. 2 in the world in straight sets in the final, so I think it must be a good feeling. An amazing match today. Keep it going. I remember you from juniors; you have the talent, so now you need to make more matches like this and more tournaments like this. Congrats to you and your team.”

Fortunately for Medvedev, the result in ‘s-Hertogenbosch was never going to prevent him from returning to No. 1 because Novak Djokovic is losing 2,000 points from last year’s French Open title. The 26-year-old will lead Alexander Zverev by almost 900 points and he will be ahead of Djokovic–who is falling to No. 3–by almost 1,200 points.

Still, Medvedev was paying close attention to his point total throughout the week in hopes of building a big enough advantage atop the rankings to keep him there longer than the three weeks he enjoyed in the No. 1 spot in February and March.

“I don’t have many points to defend on grass and I have some to win,” he said following his quarterfinal defeat of Ilya Ivashka. “Every round is points. The higher you get (in the rankings), the more you need to step up. But here I got 90 points; already good. I can get 250 at maximum and he will try to do it.”

Medvedev didn’t get that many. But he did more than enough to get to No. 1. Now the question is: how long can he stay there?

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.