The present of Daniel Medvedev in tennis it takes place in a narrative of opposite poles. On the one hand, as of February of this year he made history by breaking an 18-year streak of the Big Four (Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray) occupying the top of the ATP world ranking; however, that position of honor is tarnished by adding five consecutive lost finals.
On June 13, Medvedev regained the top of the ATP ranking after being a finalist in the 250 category tournament held in s’Hertogenbosch (The Netherlands), combined with the defeat of Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals of Roland Garros at the hands of Rafael Nadal. This marked the second time that Medvedev had risen to first place in the world after February.
The Russian closed his first week in the return to the top of the ranking with a defeat, because on June 19 he fell by partials of 1-6 and 4-6 against the Pole Hubert Hurkacz within the ATP 500 tournament in Halle (Germany), further increasing his drought of victories for almost a year.
The defeat of Medvedev in Halle joins that of s’Hertogenbosch (against Tim van Rijthoven), that of the 2022 Australian Open (against Rafael Nadal), that of the 2021 ATP Finals (against Alexander Zverev) and that of the 2021 Paris Masters (against Novak Djokovic), consuming five defeats in finals between November 2021 and June 2022.
Due to this statistic, Daniil Medvedev is the first tennis player in the history of the ATP rankings, created in 1973, who holds five consecutive singles finals and is still ranked within the Top 2 in the world, currently at the top, for above Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Casper Ruud, who complete the Top 5.
The last title Medvedev won was the US Open in September 2021 (against Djokovic), with which he completed a streak of four finals won between March and September of that year, a period in which he won the Canadian Masters 1000 (against Reilly Opelka), the 250 of Mallorca (against Sam Querrey) and the 250 of Marseille (against Pierre-Hugues Herbert).
In fact, that victory in the US Open 2021 It represented Medvedev’s first victory at the Grand Slam level and confirmed him as a real threat to the Big Three (Federer, Nadal and Djokovic), as well as being the first of the Next-Gen, in which other characters such as Zverev and Stefanos compete. Tsitsipas, in establishing himself in the highest positions in tennis.
The recent loss in the Halle tournament hits Medvedev’s expectations given that he will not be able to participate in the third Grand Slam of the year, Wimbledon, due to the restrictions that the organizers placed on Russian and Belarusian tennis players since the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine earlier this year.
This means that Medvedev, at 26 years old, with 13 titles to his credit and located in the first place in the ranking, only focuses his vision on the 250 tournament in Mallorca (on grass), where he will try to revalidate his crown, and thus reach top of his preparation for the US Open, the last Grand Slam of the season.
Despite the negative streak of losing finals, Medvedev continues to put his country’s tennis on high. Coming into the last championship fight at the Dutch and German tournaments this June, he became the first Russian to have consecutive appearances in finals on grass. It is his best moment on this type of surface, since of the 25 finals he has played in his entire career, before those in s’Hertogenbosch and Halle he had only played one in Mallorca last June.
In addition, the five lost finals have served him for another statistic: he surpassed Mikhail Youzhny and became the fourth Russian tennis player with the most singles finals in tennis history with a total of 25, close to third place, occupied by Marat Safin with 27. The second place is held by Nikolay Davydenko with 28, although the place of honor is destined for Yevgeny Kafelnikov far away with a total of 46 finals.
This is the occasion with the longest losing streak of finals for Medvedev, since previously he had lined up three at most between April and August 2019, when he fell at the Barcelona, Washington and Canada Opens against Dominic Thiem, Nick Kyrgios and Rafael Nadal, respectively.
Still, the element that keeps Medvedev at the top of the ranking is his perseverance in decisive stages, such as the finals or semifinals. Thanks to that, his name, along with alexander zverevthey broke another milestone: since they both occupied the 1-2 of the world ranking on June 13, they broke a streak of 19 years (since November 16, 2003) of seeing names different from those of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic in the Top 2.
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