The Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev (3rd) and German Alexander Zverev (6th) won their respective matches against the Pole Hubert Hurkacz (9th) and Spanish Carlos Alcaraz (2nd) to advance to the Australian Open semi-finalswhere they will cross paths for a place in the final.
Medvedev had a tremendous performance to defeat by 7-6(4), 2-6, 6-3, 5-7 y 6-4 to the Polish giant, who is going through the best moment of his career, and took the victory mainly thanks to the variants in his game that allowed him to deactivate the power of his rival’s blows in the most important moments.
This was the second match of the tournament in which Medvedev needed five sets to beat his rival. The other match where the same thing happened was in the second round, when the Russian overcame a deficit of two sets to zero to beat the Finn. Emil Ruusuvuori por 3-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-6(1) and 6-0.
In this way, Medvedev managed to get into the semi-finals of a Grand Slam for third consecutive time: He already did it at Wimbledon, where he lost to Carlos Alcaraz in the semis, and at the US Open, where he was defeated by the Serbian Novak Djokovic in the decisive match.
Medvedev, who won the US Open in 2021 and became No. 1 in the world in 2022, He is going for his first title in Australiawhere it has already reached the final in 2021 and 2022.
Medvedev’s opponent in the semifinals will be Alexander Zverevwho played one of the best games of his career to beat Carlos Alcaraz 6-1, 6-3, 6-7(2) and 6-4.
The German passed over the Spanish in the first two sets, committing very few unforced errors and taking advantage of his rival’s lack of aim.
It seemed that Zverev was going to easily close the match in the third set after having a 5-2 advantage in games, but Alcaraz recovered and forced a fourth set after winning the tie-break.
In the fourth set Alcaraz had opportunities to go up 5-3 with his serve, but finally the German recovered, got a break and He closed the match by maintaining his serve to seal the final 6-4.
This result also benefits the Serbian Novak Djokovic, who made sure to continue as No. 1 of the world after the tournament.
The stars align for Sascha in Melbourne ✨@AlexZverev returns to the AO semifinals and is one step closer to a maiden Grand Slam trophy ✨@wwos • @espn • @eurosport • @wowowtennis pic.twitter.com/WLYySu0iYz
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 24, 2024
The semi-final match between Zverev and Medvedev It will be Thursday night. If he wins, the Russian will displace Alcaraz of the second place in the ranking, while the German could surpass Rublev and rank number 5 in the world. The other semi-final, also tomorrow, will be Novak Djokovic (1st) and the Italian Jannik Sinner (4th).