How Sinner was able to defeat Medvedev so comprehensively
We break down what led to Jannik Sinner’s 6-1, 6-2 victory over Daniil Medvedev in the Miami Open semi-finals
Daniil Medvedev smashed by Jannik Sinner at Miami 2024 | © Julien Nouet for Tennis Majors
Few tennis fans would have expected that an hour and nine minutes into the first Miami Open semi-final, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev would be shaking hands at the net.
With Sinner victorious for the loss of just three games, this was by far the Italian’s most dominant performance, not just this tournament, but in the history of his rivalry with Medvedev.
“I am surprised for sure,” revealed Sinner after the match. “It’s something I was not expecting.”
What enabled the world No 3 to record such a comprehensive victory over one of his toughest rivals, on a surface that favours Medvedev’s game?
Medvedev tries and fails to play aggressive tennis
In their previous meeting – two months ago, in the Australian Open final – Medvedev came within six points of defeating Sinner courtesy of a brilliant tactical change. Rather than playing his traditional deep court position, the Russian adopted a hyper-aggressive brand of tennis, standing up for returns and rallies and taking time away from his opponent.
Today, he attempted a similar approach, but fell flat.
“My plan was to play aggressive kind of like in Australia, a bit more aggressive than I usually do, and it’s always a risk,” said Medvedev.
The world No 4 went on to explain how he felt that his usual “counter defensive style” of play “might not be good enough anymore” against Sinner. Instead, he determined to be more attacking.
“In Australia it worked well. Here, I was missing too much,” Medvedev confessed.
Sinner, humble as always, agreed that Medvedev’s execution was lacking, saying, “I think Daniil didn’t feel too well today. He made a lot of mistakes he usually doesn’t make.”
Too late to change
When it became apparent that Medvedev’s radar was off and he would be unable to execute the same game plan that brought success in Australia, it was too late for the Russian to change.
“Before the second set the question was do I go back to playing my style or do I continue this way?” said Medvedev. “Because if we saw Alcaraz against him in Indian Wells it was the same, 6-1, kind of easy, and then Carlos managed to step up and play better and beat Jannik.”
“I was like, no, I want to try to do the same, and I didn’t manage to do it. That time I decided to, let’s say, play my game. It was a bit too late. I mean, I still had Love-30 and volley, but it’s not easy to come back from this score.
“I think the tactics I used in the beginning of the match was not the problem. The problem was the execution, too many mistakes, not enough precision.
“For sure after a match like this, I’m asking myself if I should have changed it earlier, but I stuck to what I thought was going to work, and I wanted to do it better and I didn’t manage to do it,” confessed Medvedev. “When I changed, it was just too late.”
For Medvedev, it didn’t help that Sinner played one of the best matches of any player on the ATP Tour this year. According to TennisViz, the Italian had an overall performance rating of 9.52 out of 10 in the Miami Open semi-final–with the Tour average for a match being 7.57 this year.
Hard to come up with any tactic to combat that.
