Daniil Medvedev praised 'strong' Naomi Osaka before tearful return to big final in Miami

Daniil Medvedev shared his "respect" for Naomi Osaka before the former world No 1 made it to her first big final since winning the 2021 Australian Open. Osaka has dropped outside of the world's top 75 after taking some time away from tennis for her mental health and losing early in recent Grand Slams.

Osaka is set to face soon-to-be world No 1 Iga Swiatek in the Miami Open final on Saturday. It will be just their second career meeting more than two years after their first, when Osaka was the world No 2 and Swiatek had not yet cracked the world's top 50.

The four-time Major champion managed to defeat Belinda Bencic for the first time in their professional careers on Thursday to reach the final, a day after Daniil Medvedev had piled praise onto the 24-year-old. Medvedev himself also played on Thursday, crashing out to Hubert Hurkacz in the quarter-final as he later admitted to feeling like "a fish on the sofa", cramping up during his loss to the defending champion.

Osaka had previously admitted to finding the ATP world No 2 an "interesting" character but Medvedev admitted he didn't know the current world No 77 too well on a personal level, instead hailing her as one of the best players of all time. "I don't know her close as a person, so it would be tough for me to talk about it. I mean, I don't like to talk about people, because what I see is going to be articles in the media," he said.

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"Sometimes when I cross her, which is, you know, you don't know a person close enough. So I can only talk mostly about her tennis career, which is amazing. She won a lot of Grand Slams, she's one of the best in the world. Every time she plays, I think stadiums