A video
from a few months ago by the ATP showed
Daniil Medvedev predicting that Roman
Safiulin, who recently defeated Carlos Alcaraz at
Paris Masters, would be the "dark
horse" of the season.
Daniil
Medvedev suffered an early exit from the Paris Masters after being defeated by
Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 6-7(4), 7-6(2). The Russian tennis player was surprised in
the tournament's second round and only has the ATP Finals left to play, where
he is the third seed, behind only Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz.
Precisely,
the young Spanish player was also surprisingly eliminated in the second round
of Paris, facing the Russian world No. 45,
Roman Safiullin, who came from the
qualifiers and won 6-3, 6-4 in a great display of tennis by the Russian. This
defeat practically ended Alcaraz's hopes of finishing the year as the world No.
1.
In an
interview with the ATP at the beginning of the year, Medvedev had already
commented on the high level Safiullin can achieve and pointed to him as the
"dark horse" of the season.
Safiullin
has been one of the surprises of the season, despite his ranking not indicating
so for a significant part of the year. Just six months ago, he was outside the
top 100, and his good results have now placed him inside the top 50. Following
his performance in Paris, he could secure a spot in the top 40.
Safiullin
has achieved significant victories, including wins over Nicolas Jarry, Tommy
Paul, and Sebastian Korda during the clay season. He was also one of the
surprises at Wimbledon, where he reached the quarterfinals before losing to the
Italian Jannik Sinner.
In recent
months, he has added wins over Dan Evans, Lorenzo Musetti, Alexander Zverev,
and Andy Murray to his resume, in addition to his career-best victory over
Carlos Alcaraz.
In the
third round, Safiullin will face his compatriot and 16th seed, Karen Khachanov.
The two Russians met for the first time in their careers last week in the first
round of the Vienna Open, with Khachanov winning 6-4, 6-4.