It is the 25-year-old’s second win against his Russian compatriot in the sixth duel ever and en suite. The second match in this pool from 9 p.m. will be played by Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, who is in second place, and Serbian Novak Djokovic (7).
Rublev was superior in the early stages against the current Vienna winners, but Medvedev came into play better when they were 5-2 behind. Rublev still got two set balls, but it went into a tie-break. In that he was 6:2 ahead, but also missed these four set balls as well as another later. The 26-year-old Medvedev, on the other hand, struck at his first chance after a service by Rublev was mistakenly passed out and the newly played point then went to the easy favourite.
Rublew was angry at what had happened, but recovered quickly, broke to make it 2:1 and never gave up this advantage. In the third set, the tie-break went in step, the fourth overall in the duels between the two. And for the fourth time there were two differences, but for the first time not to Medvedev. The level of play reached its peak. Again Rublew missed chances, namely four match points. The fifth ended up just “in” after a playing time of 2:29 hours.
Source: Nachrichten
