Daniil Medvedev finds form to ease into Dubai Tennis Championships semi-finals

Daniil Medvedev said after his previous two rounds at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships that he would need to keep improving if he was to successfully defend his title.

On Thursday in the quarter-finals, the improvement was evident as the top seed eased past Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-2, 6-3 with his best performance of the week so far.

Before Dubai, Medvedev had not played since losing the Australian Open final to Jannik Sinner a month ago, so a lack of match sharpness was hardly surprising. The Russian had to grind past Alexander Shevchenko and Lorenzo Sonego in the first and second rounds respectively but enjoyed a far more comfortable outing against eighth seed Davidovich Fokina to reach the semi-finals.

Medvedev was not fully back to his brilliant best, although there was enough on show to suggest that he is trending in the right direction and remains the man to beat in Dubai.

"Alejandro can play very well," Medvedev, 28, said. "Sometimes during matches he can have a little down moment and then he goes up. I knew that no matter the score, I needed to go until the last point. The second set at one moment got a bit tighter but I managed to stay there and win some more games and it was enough to win."

The world No 4 set himself up for victory with a run that started towards the end of the first set and concluded midway through the second when he won seven straight games. After fending off three break points to hold for a 3-2 lead, Medvedev secured back-to-back breaks of his own to ease to a one-set lead in 36 minutes.

The top seed maintained that momentum by racing into a 4-0 lead in the second set as he served and returned superbly, forcing Davidovich Fokina into errors and winning the majority of rallies.