Daniil Medvedev books Rotterdam semi-final over Felix Auger-Aliassime

Friday, 17 February 2023 at 17:35

Daniil Medvedev earned his first top 10 win since August of last year by beating defending champion Felix Auger-Aliassime in Rotterdam 6-2 6-4.

Auger-Aliassime won this event last year but he produced a rather lacklustre performance against Medvedev today. He's never had the best score against Medvedev, to begin with but the Russian is back to playing some of his best tennis in the last couple of months. He's been down for a while but looks incredibly strong here.

Auger-Alaissime's afternoon began badly as Medvedev got to his first break point pretty early. He didn't convert that one but he then won four games in a row to take the first 6-2. A major issue for Auger-Alisasime was his serve as he hit only 46 % of his first serves and that's not even close to what he needed.

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He tried to be aggressive but Medvedev's court position allowed him to catch all balls and he forced the Canadian into 11 unforced errors which was 10 more than he had. The second set was a bit more competitive despite Medvedev jumping out to an early lead. The Canadian broke back to stay alive but still couldn't turn it around completely.

6-4 was the final score as his serve remained lacklustre in the second set. It was the main problem for him as he needed it to be much better in order to keep the rallies shorter.