After Rafael Nadal became the first man to be eliminated from semi-final contention at the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals, Wednesday’s action will see Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev playing to avoid the same fate.
An evening defeat for either man would deal a major dent in his hopes to progress out of the Red Group, while the winner of the afternoon matchup between Novak Djokovic and Andrey Rublev could have his place in the knockout rounds confirmed by day’s end.
In doubles action, top seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski meet Croatians Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic in a battle of 1-0 teams, while Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios face Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek as both pairs seek their first win of the week.
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[2] Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) vs. [4] Daniil Medvedev
The 11th meeting in the longstanding ATP Head2Head rivalry between Tsitsipas and Medvedev will play out at the Pala Alpitour as the pair meets at the Nitto ATP Finals for a second time. After Medvedev won the first five meetings, Tsitsipas has claimed three of the past five to improve to 3-7 in their history. The Greek scored his first win in the series at the 2019 Nitto ATP Finals and went on to win the London title in his tournament debut.
Though both men lost their opening matches on Monday in Turin, both can take plenty of positives from their narrow defeats. Tsitsipas was broken just once in a 6-4, 7-6(4) loss to Djokovic, while Medvedev was edged 6-7(7), 6-3, 7-6(7) by Rublev.
Tsitsipas felt he was nearing top form late in the match against Djokovic, though the Serbian was still able to close out the tie-break with strong serving.
“I kind of found [my backhand] in the last rally we had before he served those two great serves,” Tsitsipas said post-match. “I found a rhythm, I got into the rally a little bit better, a few adjustments that I made. I just wish I could have done this earlier. I don’t know, certain things come at random times in matches, completely random. Could be the very last points of the match.”
Medvedev was generally happy with his performance against Rublev, though he sees plenty of room to grow.
“There are some matches where you feel like you’re untouchable, and you know that everything you do — let’s put it this way — turns into gold. Today was not one of them,”…
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