By Alix Ramsay
INDIAN WELLS—Ladies and gentlemen, Daniil Medvedev is back. Carlos Alcaraz says so so it must be true.
The world No.1, the man who had not been beaten this year, who had racked up 16 consecutive match wins and picked up the Australian Open and Doha silverware, was bullied, battered and finally bounced off the court 6-3, 7-6 (3) in 97 minutes by the Russian.
Medvedev was brilliant; Alcaraz wasn’t. And when Alcaraz tried to put his game in order in the second set, Medvedev did not give him so much as a sniff of a chance.
“First of all, I just have to give credit to Daniil,” the former champion said. “I think he just played an amazing match. Since the start of the match until the end, he was playing unreal, I’ve got to say. I have never seen, to be honest, Daniil playing like this.”
From the very start, Medvedev made his game plan clear: he would play off the front foot; he would attack, he would pile on the pressure and he would make Alcaraz run until he dropped. And as Alcaraz pointed out sadly – Medvedev simply didn’t miss a shot. Even world No.1s can’t beat that level of performance.
“How aggressive he played all the time – I think that surprised me a little bit,” Alcaraz said. “I knew at the beginning that he was going to play aggressive, but how, the way he did it, surprised me a lot, because he didn’t miss any or he didn’t miss as much as I expected. He was playing aggressive, and he didn’t even miss. So it was tricky.
“It feels like after my serve, he just start in a good position to return well all the time. And it feels like he always find the window, the space, to make the passing shot or to play a good shot for making me volleying in a bad position. He just found every solutions after every main shot.”
Earlier in the tournament, Alcaraz had talked about the pressure of having a target on his back. Suddenly, his rivals raised their game to new levels when the faced him and it was like taking on Roger Federer in every round. It was a good problem to have but it was a little wearing.
It didn’t help the Alcaraz cause that his game was not firing on all cylinders. The usual combination of brutal power and improvised magic were not quite synching: there moments of stunning shot-making and then he would miss an absolute sitter.
At the other end of the court, Medvedev was a like a windmill on roller skates. His long arms and legs whirred round as he chased every ball, reached shots he had no right to reach and pulled Alcaraz every which way. And he clattered the ball with power and precision. Even when Alcaraz tried to push back in the second set, Medvedev never let up.
“He just made it that I had to struggle,” Alcaraz said. “In the second set, I just started to feel much better. I realised what I have to do. I realised that I have to suffer, and I accept it. I would say that that’s why the second set was better.
“I just had my chances that I didn’t take. I would say the difference was he just save four breakpoints, and I didn’t save any. So I would say that’s a big difference.”
Put like that, he makes it sound very simple. But Jannik Sinner will know that Sunday’s final against the big man from Moscow will be anything but simple. He leads their rivalry with eight wins to Medvedev’s seven – but he has not played Meddy in this sort of form.
Sinner did not just beat Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals, he absolutely demolished him (aided and abetted by a woeful performance by the German). The final score of 6-2, 6-4 actually flatters Zverev. That he managed to keep the world No.2 on court for 83 minutes was about all he could take from the match.
Now there is the renewed, back-to-his-best Russian to deal with and that could be awkward.
“He’s back to very, very high level,” Sinner said. “Very big serve, I feel like. He’s returning very well. Very, very deep.
“Everyone is trying to be slightly more aggressive. Sascha today tried to be more aggressive. He didn’t play his best tennis today, I feel like, but everyone is trying to push.
“And I think Daniil has found again a good, good balance on court, winning a title in Dubai, coming here, making again great results.
But also, last time we played has been quite a while now. So let’s see what’s coming.”
If the final is half as entertaining as Medvedev’s win over Alcaraz, what is coming should be a treat.