Italy’s Yannick Sinner defeated defending champion Daniil Medvedev 6-1, 6-2 in just 69 minutes on Friday to reach the ATP Miami Open final, where he will face Grigor Dimitrov. Bulgaria’s Dimitrov defeated fourth seed Alexander Zverev 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4 to reach the finals of the Masters 1000 series for the third time. Sinner will be the favorite to face world number 12 Dimitrov after showing power and skill to sweep past Medvedev at Hard Rock Stadium. The Italian lost to the Russian in the Miami final last year but fought back from two sets down to beat the Russian in the Australian Open final in January.
There was no doubt about the result this time, as Sinner was completely dominant from the start.
Sinner broke Medvedev’s first serve in the opening set to lead 2-0, and at the end of a long stalemate, Sinner backed the Russian into a corner before knocking the winner past him.
The 22-year-old looked fresh and scrappy, explosive from the baseline and creative at the net, but Medvedev struggled to hold on to his own serve and the Italian used his advantage to break again in the fourth game . The fourth breakpoint.
Medvedev, who looked flustered, finally held on in the sixth game, but it took Sinner only 33 minutes on serve to complete the first set victory.
The second set is the same story, with The Sinner starting with Love. The Russian looked frustrated when he went wide on a break point, trailing 1-4, in one of a series of unusually poor shots from the 28-year-old.
Sinner faced little resistance on his way to serving in the match and admitted his opponent’s poor performance helped him achieve a huge victory.
“I felt great on the court today. Usually, the more you play in a game, the more comfortable you become and I’m very happy with my performance today,” he said.
“I think Daniel didn’t feel good today. He made a lot of mistakes that he normally wouldn’t make, so I took my chances. I’m expecting a very tough game.”
different players, different people
Sinner has won five in a row after losing his first six matches against Medvedev.
Sinner, who had racked up 19 wins before losing to Carlos Alcaraz in the Indian Wells semifinals, said he was in a much different place than when he missed the Miami final last year.
“I’m a different player, a different person,” he said.
Medvedev was forthright in his assessment of his performance.
“He played well. I didn’t play well enough. We could talk for hours, but at the end of the day I didn’t play well enough and he played well and he won easily. Honestly, that’s the end of the story,” he said. .
But he said Sinner has significantly accelerated his progress over the past year.
“He makes fewer mistakes, he chooses his shots more wisely. His serve is ten times better. You know, Janik’s serve has always been good, but now his serve is really, really big.
“I actually wonder how he does it because serving is not that easy to practice and now he, yeah, his serve is a big improvement for him”
The situation in the second semi-final was even more tense, with several key moments deciding the outcome.
Dimitrov, who knocked out world No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals, broke serve when he led 5-4 in the first set when Zverev mistakenly returned a serve and the ball ballooned off the court. , handing over the advantage to the Bulgarians.
The big-serving German was solid in the second set, and although he led 6-2 in the tie-break, he eventually won 7-4 to force a decider.
Since Dimitrov is always busy and often on the court, Zverev relies on his baseline performance to help him break through.
But he was broken in the seventh game when Dimitrov sprinted toward the net, slipped, but somehow managed an overhead volley almost on the floor to earn break point.
The Bulgarian watched the game with energy and said his impromptu winner showed his mentality.
“I didn’t let any balls go through me…I just thought, OK, I see the ball, I’m going to contest it.
“It was a free-for-all and we really got at each other after the first set,” he said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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