Russia’s Daniil Medvedev reaches for a backhand return to Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
| Photo Credit: AFP
Daniil Medvedev defeated a decided Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-3, 7-5 on Wednesday to reach the semi-finals at Indian Wells and push his ATP match successful streak to 18 straight.
The world quantity six from Russia confirmed little sick impact from the twisted ankle he suffered in a win over Alexander Zverev a day earlier.
He raced by way of the opening set, a break of the Spaniard’s serve within the second sport the one opening he wanted as he misplaced simply six factors on his serve on the best way to pocketing the set in 39 minutes.
“I’m actually happy the ankle didn’t hurt much because when I warmed up it was hurting pretty bad and I was like ‘I knew I’m going to play, I knew I’m going to try,’ but I couldn’t move well on the warmup,” Medvedev mentioned.
“I tried to warm it up as long as possible and take one painkiller so that probably helped and I was actually feeling better and better during the match,” added the previous US Open champion.
It was a unique story within the second set on a windy Stadium Court. Davidovich Fokina had a break probability in every of Medvedev’s first three service video games, just for the Russian to give you huge serves to fend him off.
Davidovich Fokina was up 0-40 within the eighth sport just for Medvedev to escape.
Along the best way Medvedev had one other fall on the courtroom, this time scraping his hand and requiring the coach to bandage his bloody thumb.
Frustrating Davidovich Fokina from the baseline, Medvedev pounced on the Spaniard’s first signal of weak spot within the set, breaking him to love and shortly serving out the match — sealing it with a service winner.
Medvedev – who’s coming off titles in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai within the three weeks main into Indian Wells — now has two days off earlier than he faces American Frances Tiafoe, who beat 2021 Indian Wells champion Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4.
