In her conversation with socialbites.ca, former world number two among juniors Anastasia Pivovarova evaluated the play of Daniil Medvedev at the beginning of the match against Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
Medvedev lost the first two sets but then managed to fight back and to triumph With a score of 5:7, 3:6. 7:6 (7:4), 7:6 (7:5), 6:3.
“The victory is truly sensational. It is impossible to believe that Medvedev was able to turn the match around. After the first set, I was horrified by Daniil’s level of tennis, and apparently Zverev himself was surprised that Medvedev played so badly (laughs). Apparently such surprise and from shock Zverev himself began to play worse.
Maybe this was Daniel’s cunning tactic and it worked. If that was really the plan, then it was great (laughs).
Seriously, Medvedev made too many mistakes, losing three serves and committing too many double faults. But at the same time, the course of the game was still clear: the Russian tennis player wanted to drag Zverev into a long rally and slow down his pace.
Fast rallies could have benefited Zverev (his winning match with Carlos Alcaraz went along those lines), so Medvedev definitely wanted to slow down the pace in this meeting,” Pivovarova said.
In the final, Medvedev will play against Jannik Sinner, who beat Novak Djokovic in the 1/2 stage. The match will be played on Sunday, January 28, at 11.30 Moscow time.
Previously Medvedev explainedHow he came back from 0:2 in the match against Zverev.