Medvedev downs defending champ for third straight title award

Daniil Medvedev

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Freshly minted champion, Daniil Medvedev, extended his winning streak to 14 matches in a row, adding the Dubai trophy, his 18th overall, to his 2023 haul after back-to-back victories in Rotterdam and Doha.

Medvedev turned up the heat on his torrid run of form as he raced past compatriot Andrey Rublev 6-2, 6-2 in the final of the Dubai Championships, lifting his third trophy in as many weeks yesterday.

The champion, who didn’t drop a set all week, including against world number one, Novak Djokovic, in the semifinals, was in imperious form against Rublev, the defending champion. His highly defensive baseline game absorbed Rublev’s pace, redirecting it back to his opponent as Medvedev patrolled the baseline from almost-out-of-camera-view-territory.

Rublev showed flashes of the growing variety in his game, going to net 14 times and winning on nine occasions in an attempt to disrupt the rhythm of their long rallies. But his execution was at times lacking and against a peaking Medvedev, there was little room for error.

Despite being under pressure from Rublev’s booming forehand, Medvedev kept the score card clean by hitting just eight unforced errors, none from the backhand side and balanced them out with 22 winners. Rublev hit nearly three times as many unforced errors as Medvedev with 22, and his 13 winners weren’t enough to keep pace as the world number seven began to pull away.

The serve was the biggest difference-maker as Medvedev regularly pounced on his opponent’s vulnerable second serve and left Rublev to win just 29 per cent of those points in the match.

Medvedev, in turn, won 83 percent of points behind his first serve and Rublev was unable to generate