Russia’s tennis star Daniil Medvedev has joked about colouring his hair to distract Spain’s young sensation Carlos Alcaraz after suffering yet another defeat. Both players faced off in the semifinal of the China Open, where the young Spaniard came out on top in straight sets with a score of 7-5, 6-3.
It was Alcaraz’s seventh win in nine matches against Medvedev in professional tennis and third consecutive this year. Talking after the match, Medvedev was quoted in a report as saying that he told the reigning world number three about his plan to distract him before the next meeting by colouring his hair.
“I told Carlos next match I'm going to paint my hair blond and put 'Botic' here,” he said. “Maybe this can help. As I say, today I played pretty well. I don't see how I could beat him today on a given day today. Yeah, next match I need to try something. Maybe throw him off a little bit. But it's a joke, of course.”
Alcaraz, who has already been regarded as one of the best players currently playing in men’s tennis in the singles category along with the likes of Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, has been dominant over the Russian tennis star, especially this year. His previous defeat against the world number five was in the US Open last year, where Medvedev came out on top with a score of 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. This year, Alcaraz defeated the one-time Grand Slam winner in the final of the Indian Wells in straight sets with a score of 7-5, 6-1. He then got the better of him once again in the semifinal at Wimbledon with a score of 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. The young Spaniard will now wait to figure out who will be his opponent in the final of the competition. The second semifinal is being played between Sinner and China’s Bu Yunchaokete.
7 - Moving to a record of 7-1, Carlos Alcaraz has claimed his seventh ATP top five victory of 2024, surpassing Jannik Sinner (6) for the outright most ATP top five wins of any player so far this year. Extraordinary. #ChinaOpen | @ChinaOpen @atptour @ATPMediaInfo
