Can Daniil Medvedev defend a title for the first time in his career at Dubai Tennis Championships 2024?
From winning a Grand Slam title to being World No. 1, Daniil Medvedev has done it all. A successful title defense, however, continues to elude the Russian. Medvedev has lifted an impressive 20 ATP Tour titles, but never has he been able to lift the same trophy in consecutive years.
However, that does not necessarily reflect on his consistency. In fact, he has come close to achieving the feat on a few occasions - most notably at the 2021 ATP Finals and 2021 Paris Masters.
With Medvedev set to make another bid to defend a title at the Dubai Tennis Championships, let’s examine his past attempts and the chances of him finally taking the chip off his shoulder in the coming week.
It is pertinent to note that Medvedev’s runs at the Paris Masters and ATP Finals mentioned earlier came shortly after his maiden Grand Slam triumph at the 2021 US Open.
That was a period when the Russian was practically unbeatable on harcourts. He had 148 wins on the surface between the 2018 and the eventual US Open win, the most for any player in that period.
In essence, the Paris Masters and ATP Finals titles were his to lose. And lose he did, to Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev respectively. The Russian came up short in the finals, with the Paris Masters being a reversal of the US Open result.
That begs the question, is defending a title the Achilles heel for Medvedev? The answer is far from straightforward.
Let’s simplify things, the ATP Tour is highly competitive and defending a crown is not an easy task. The bigger the stage, the tougher the competition. And the big stage is where most of Medvedev’s recent wins have come at.
From ATP 250 winner to Masters 1000 champ, the rise of Daniil Medvedev
Of Daniil Medvedev’s 20 titles, eight have come at the ATP 250 level. However, six of them came before or in 2021 - a period when he was not the force on the Tour that he is now.
The US Open win catapulted Medvedev to the top of the game and his participation at smaller-level tournaments, where defending a title may be just that tad bit easier.
The Russian has won only two ATP 250 tournaments since - Los Cabos in 2022 and Qatar Open in 2023. He did not play at either in the subsequent year. He had also won the ABN AMRO Open in Rotterdam last year, but did not play at that event either.
The Dubai Tennis Championships will be the first title that he is set to defend since the Erste Bank Open in Vienna last year. He has come agonisingly close on that occasion, falling in the summit clash yet again (to Jannik Sinner this time).
The stage is set for Daniil Medvedev at the Dubai Tennis Championships
Jump to the present and another golden opportunity presents itself in the form of the Dubai Tennis Championships - a field sans Novak Djokovic or a player ranked higher than Daniil Medvedev himself.
The Russian is the top seed at this year’s tournament, which features two more top-10 players - Andrey Rublev and Hubert Hurkacz. He leads his countryman 7-2 in their head-to-head and shares a closer 3-3 record with the Pole.
One also has to take into account Daniil Medvedev’s recent withdrawals citing fatigue and a right foot injury. He has struggled against the really big hitters even when playing at his best, but the courts in Dubai are not the fastest and should play to his advantage.
If fully fit, Medvedev definitely has the game to finish atop the podium. But the lack of match practice and the big target on his back may extend his wait for a title defence just a little longer for now.