Alex de Minaur of Australia stunned fourth seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia 6-4 2-6 7-5 in the second round at the ATP Paris Masters on Wednesday. It was a big setback for the 26-year-old Russian, who arrived in the French capital fresh from his triumph in Vienna and was one of the pre-tournament favourites in Paris. It was a gruelling encounter, lasting for two hours and 45 minutes, as the 23-year-old Australian registered his first ever win against a top-five player. But what were the keys to the match
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De Minaur keeps his nose ahead early:
De Minaur was the more attacking of the two players in the first set. Neither player typically looks to play on the front foot, but de Minaur was able to hit his groundstrokes with enough power and put Medvedev under pressure consistently.
Hitting through the Russian, who bases his success largely on his brilliant movement at the baseline, was never going to be easy on what is a relatively slow surface. But de Minaur stuck to his guns, breaking early in the match and managing to stay in front to win the first set deservingly.
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De Minaur errors bring Medvedev back into the match:
De Minaur had found the right balance between consistency and aggression in the first set. But in the second set errors crept into his game and Medvedev capitalised. There were a number of cross court backhand exchanges between the two, with both players hesitant to pull the trigger down-the-line.
De Minaur often looked to his backhand slice, whilst Medvedev took the opposite approach, putting more revolutions on the ball in an attempt to push de Minaur back and not allow him the opportunity to break out of the cross-court pattern.
However, the Australian’s frequent errors meant that he faced nine break points in the second set alone, with Medvedev converting two of those opportunities. The Russian won the set convincingly, as de Minaur could only hit four winners and made 17 unforced errors. To make matters worse for the Australian, Medvedev started to find his range down-the-line.
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De Minaur changes his tactics in the thrilling final set:
De Minaur adopted a two-pronged tactics in the final set; first, he started playing drop shots more frequently and, secondly, he started rushing the net though his volleying skills were up to the mark as he failed to put away a number of straightforward volleys.
Still, he put enough pressure on the Russian from the net to break back after the world #3 got the first break of serve of the decider in the third game. Medvedev then saved two match points in the 10th game, but could not hold his serve in the 12th after committing a costly double fault trailing 15-30.
Overall, de Minaur committed 37 unforced errors in the match against Medvedev’s 34 and hit 29 winners against the Russian’s 33. However, Medvedev could win only 65% of the points on his first serve against the Australian’s 68% and that made the difference in the end in a very close contest.
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