In a battle of former champions, second seed Daniil Medvedev battled past Stan Wawrinka 6-7 (8-10), 6-4, 6-1 in an entertaining evening match at the ABN Amro Open in Rotterdam.
The Swiss veteran showed glimpses of his glory days with stunning baseline winners as he sneaked the first set on a tie-break but ran out of steam as the contest wore on and double faulted at crucial moments – while Medvedev tightened up his game minimizing errors and began controlling baseline duels, as well as throwing in regular drop shots in the third set.
“I wanted to make him run a bit more and I managed to do it pretty well because to begin the drop shots were not working,” said Medvedev as he came off court. “There was no serious strategy because Stan dictates the game and likes to hit strong and I don’t have enough power in these conditions to dictate the game, so I have to be a little bit on the defensive and I watch what the other guy does and I managed to play not a bad match. I feel I should have won the first set but it came down to a few points and he played that well.”
Interestingly, the pair’s previous head-to-heads were locked at 2-2 with no match being won in straight sets. Their last contest was three years ago but Medvedev had not beaten Wawrinka since 2019.
Wawrinka took the early break to lead 3-2 but conceded it immediately with a double fault after a game filled with errors. In the next Medvedev found himself in trouble at 0-30 down after a cat and mouse exchange at the net but he survived to go ahead 4-3. Thereafter followed two more breaks of serve as neither could stamp their authority while Medvedev later explained that he was getting used to the balls and pace of the court.
The tie-break followed the pattern of the set and both mean took mini-breaks. Wawrinka recovered from 3-1 down and got a lucky net cord putting him 5-4 up. He eventually took it by the smallest of margins 10-8 after Medvedev netted. But he became much more dominant from there on and dominated proceedings as he served out in two hours and twenty-seven minutes.
In earlier results, wildcard Stefanos Tsitsipas cruised through the first set before being tested in the second – but comfortably came through 6-1, 7-5 in less than 90 minutes against qualifier Harold Mayot, and now faces the winner of Matteo Berrettini or Tallon Griekspoor.
“I felt like my shots were fresh from the very beginning,” said Tsitsipas on court afterwards. “He was trying to fall back a little bit. I felt like by the second set, he really showed himself with his game. Obviously, I was trying to play the best I could. I knew there were a few things out that worked out pretty well for me, and I tried to bring that towards the end where the chances might come, knowing that I have a few shows that I can rely on in those tough situations, I felt the comfort and I the confidence rolling on those shots.”
In the first match of the day, eighth seed Hubert Hurcakz eased past Flavio Cabolli 6-3, 6-2 and dropped just four points on first serve in nine service games as well as smacking seven aces. He goes on to face the winner of Jiri Lehecka and Alexei Popyrin.
Tomorrow’s order of play is much busier with six singles matches, featuring players such as Alex de Minaur, Holger Rune, Andrey Rublev and the much-anticipated debut of World number three Carlos Alcaraz taking on home hope Botic van de Zandschulp – who caused a huge upset in beating the top seed in straight sets at the US Open last year.
