'Very nervous' Medvedev beats Sonego to keep Dubai title defence alive

Daniil Medvedev admitted he was "very tight and very nervous" during his hard-fought win over Lorenzo Sonego in the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Wednesday.

Defending champion Medvedev overcame a lacklustre first set to claim a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over the Italian in exactly two hours, but the Russian will know he will need to improve his level if he is to retain a title for the first time in his career.

"It was a very tough match in general. I was feeling very tight, very nervous. It could be for many different reasons, but that was the case," Medvedev, 28, said. "When it's like this, it's tougher to play because usually I'm not [nervous]. Usually, it's different nerves that I'm used to, but this one was kind of new.

"Straight away after I lost [points] and missed some shots, I look at my team, I start whining. That's when it's probably not going to be good. At one moment I managed to gather myself together.

"Finally, I didn't lose my serve after that moment. So in general, happy to win it in tough conditions. Sometimes you need to do it like this. If I want to win the next matches, I have to be better. But a win is a win."

How much of the uncharacteristic nerves can be attributed to Medvedev's lack of recent matches only he and his team will fully know, but it wouldn't be a surprise if that played a significant part. The Russian has not played any tournaments in the past month, not since losing the Australian Open final to Jannik Sinner.

Medvedev was slow out of the blocks, getting broken immediately as Sonego moved into a 3-0 lead. The top seed briefly got the set back on serve at 3-2 but was broken again and could have lost the set more heavily had he not saved six set points in the