{"id":56719,"date":"2023-05-19T15:13:06","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T19:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=56719"},"modified":"2023-05-19T15:13:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T19:13:06","slug":"daniil-medvedev-stefanos-tsitsipas-italian-open-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2023\/05\/19\/daniil-medvedev-stefanos-tsitsipas-italian-open-semifinal\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas set up Exciting Battle in Italian Open Semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Third seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia will take on fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in the semifinal of the Italian Open on Saturday. Those two players have enjoyed a good rivalry over the last few years, with Medvedev leading their head-to-head 7-4.<\/p>\n<p>Both of them won their respective quarterfinal matches with relative ease and we can expect an absorbing clash in the semifinal.<\/p>\n<h4>Daniil Medvedev&#8217;s backhand vs Tsitsipas&#8217; inside-out forehand:<\/h4>\n<p>Tsitsipas has one of the best forehands in the business and his inside-out forehand is going to be a key shot in the semifinal. Expect the 24-year-old Greek to push Medvedev to the latter&#8217;s backhand corner with his inside-out forehand and then rush the net to finish points with volleys.<\/p>\n<p>The key for Medvedev will be to play his crosscourt backhand with a sharper angle and thereby force the Greek to play with his backhand more often. The 27-year-old Russian can also think of taking the risk of playing his down-the-line backhand for an outright winner.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"KUM8idyZRMtZbdOI0_UU8A\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1491296287\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'KUM8idyZRMtZbdOI0_UU8A',sig:'N2YHQWbECGdMGDWrOia16kFI0abgMhBK_hFyDaLkWBI=',w:'594px',h:'400px',items:'1491296287',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Tsitsipas dragging Daniil Medvedev to the net:<\/h4>\n<p>Given Medvedev&#8217;s tendency to stay deep, Tsitsipas might play drop shots often to drag the Russian to the net. However, Medvedev is a fantastic mover on the court and will back himself to chase the ball down most of the times. Moreover, Tsitsipas should also be wary of Medvedev&#8217;s ability to hit accurate passing shots.<\/p>\n<p>It might finally come down to who serves better on Saturday. Daniil Medvedev will hold the edge there despite the fact that his serve is less of a weapon on clay. However, Tsitsipas&#8217; better record on the surface should give him a lot of confidence ahead of the match.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Third seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia will take on fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in the semifinal of the Italian Open on Saturday. Those two players have enjoyed a good rivalry over the last few years, with Medvedev leading their head-to-head 7-4. Both of them won their respective quarterfinal matches with relative ease and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4311,"featured_media":56103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12397,498,304],"class_list":["post-56719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","tag-atp-italian-open","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-stefanos-tsitsipas"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}