SAMARA, November 19, Andrey Simonenko. Final tournament of the Tennis Players Association -professionals (ATP Finals) ended on Sunday in Italian Turin. The victory was won by Serbian Novak Djokovic, who won a record 7th title at the tournament. The best result among Russian participants was shown by Daniil Medvedev, who reached the semi-finals.
Seeded third, Medvedev was placed in the same group with his compatriot Andrei Rublev (5), and this initially made it rather difficult for both Russians to reach the semi-finals. Especially considering the fact that their company included the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, whose skill, as they say, needs no introduction. In addition, the match between Medvedev and Rublev was the first for both in the tournament, which immediately put the loser in a difficult position.
As a result, Medvedev won in two games – 6:4, 6:2. However, this score does not mean that there was no fight in the match. Rublev did everything he could and even sent away a fan who was trying to cheer him up during the match. But still, this defeat broke Andrey somewhat – in two other fights against Alcaraz and the German Alexander Zverev, he was unable to take a single game and remained in last place in the group.
Medvedev secured his exit from the group in his second match at the ATP Finals. The Russian beat Zverev, who had previously lost to Alcaraz, in two games. Thus, the third match in the group stage for the Russian tennis player had not so much a sporting, but a financial significance – after all, for every victory at the final tournament of the year, athletes receive bonuses. Alas, the Russian failed to repeat his success at the US Open, where Daniil beat Carlos in the semifinals: he lost with a score of 4:6, 4:6 and reached the semifinals from second place in the group.
And this situation could not be considered the worst – after all, the winner in the parallel “four” was unexpectedly Italian Jannik Sinner, who also beat Serbian Novak Djokovic, the first racket of the world. And the score of personal meetings between the best tennis player in Russia and the representative of the Apennines was 6-2 in favor of Medvedev.
“However, it is not for nothing that there is such a saying: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” The nuance in this case was that Sinner won the last two matches against Medvedev. That is, the Italian clearly picked up the keys to Daniil’s game, and the psychological advantage was on his side, especially after defeating Djokovic, who reached the semifinals from second place in the group.
These factors played a role in the end – Sinner took the first set, lost the second set in a tiebreaker, but ultimately brought the meeting with Medvedev to victory. The match score is 6:3, 6:7 (4:7), 6:1. Nevertheless, the Russian did not seem upset at the final press conference. “I’m happy that this was a season!” exclaimed Medvedev, who won 66 matches this year. “Yes, there were ups and downs. After the tournament in Rotterdam, I dropped out of the top ten, I felt terrible, I couldn’t hit the ball in the court But then everything got better. Titles, finals…”
“I’ll try to learn lessons and improve next year, Sinner, Alcaraz, Novak are only playing better and better. If you want to stay at the top, you need to constantly progress,” the Russian added. “And I admire Sinner. He doesn’t miss a lot, he runs well. If “Give him a simple ball and you'll feel like he's run over you. I think if he plays like that, he'll win Grand Slam titles and become number one in the world.”
In the final, Sinner again faced Djokovic, who reached the final match of the tournament, beating Alcaraz in what the Serb said was one of his best matches of the year. This time Sinner did not look as confident as in the group stage match, and despite the support of the crowd, the Italian tennis player lost to Djokovic in two sets – 3:6, 3:6.
Djokovic became the 7-time champion of the final ATP tournament, surpassing the Swiss Roger Federer (6) in this indicator. The Serb also holds the record for titles at Grand Slam tournaments (24) and the Masters series (40).
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