US Open 2019: Can Daniil Medvedev steal the thunder from Rafael Nadal?
When the tennis pundits and experts were speculating over who could be the first person among the Next Gen players to reach a Major final about a year or so ago, they probably wouldn't have noticed a lean, tall gentleman from Russia who was never the favourite.
They considered this gentleman to be good enough but they had put their money on players like Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dominic Thiem. While Thiem did manage to reach the finals at Roland Garros for two consecutive years and lost to Rafael Nadal, the remaining two players failed to make their mark when it comes to Majors.
It was one among Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Nadal who constantly lifted the trophies as the Big 3 of tennis continued to make fans across the globe wonder and inquire more about the player who can defeat them.
It was not until the start of 2019 season that people came to know of Daniil Medvedev, the 23-year-old Russian who, by far, has been the most consistent player of this season. He is now only the third player behind Ivan Lendl and Andre Agassi to reach the finals of all four tournaments in the North American hard-court season (Washington D.C, Montreal, Cincinnati and New York). Not only this, his performances even on clay were exemplary as he defeated Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals of Monte-Carlo Masters, thus proving to the world that he was there to conquer.
As soon as the draw was released for the US Open this year, there were predictions of a Federer-Nadal final, which never happened before at Flushing Meadows. Those predictions were on the cusp of becoming a reality when the defending champion, Novak Djokovic retired mid-way during his fourth round match against Stan Wawrinka.
Nadal kept his promise and he reached the final in his usual, dominating and hard-hitting fashion whereas Federer lost to the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in five sets. This was not a result anyone expected but credit should be given to Dimitrov for finding his mojo on the crucial points in the entire match.
Facing Dimitrov in the semi-finals was Medvedev, who possibly had a below average tournament as far as the crowd support was concerned. There were heated exchanges between the fans and the Russian, with the latter clearly showing some signs of immaturity and frustration towards the New York crowd.
But, he did try to patch things up by apologizing for the way he behaved and his game earned him the respect, especially after his quarter-final match against Stan Wawrinka. Both the players went toe-to-toe and even though Wawrinka didn't really make many mistakes to lose the match, he still had to pay the price and that credit should be given to Medvedev for outclassing the Swiss with his rock-solid game.
The appreciation that Medvedev received post his quarter-final match was immense and it seemed as if the crowd did excuse him for his on-court tantrums in the previous matches. Since he had made peace with the crowd, he didn't have to worry much about it in the semi-finals as it went smooth and the Russian defeated Dimitrov in straight sets, 7-6(5), 6-4, 6-3.
Next up in the final is Nadal, one of the most-loved personalities on a tennis court and almost everyone will be rooting for the Spaniard to win his 19th Major title and be a step closer to reaching Federer's record of 20 Major titles. Medvedev would probably have identified by now that spectators will strictly be rooting for his opponent and they might go to any extent in supporting the 18-time Grand Slam champion.
Hence, the main question remains - Can Medvedev hold his temperament and focus only on his game?
In an individual sport like tennis, the mental aspect is as important as the technical one. The Russian must have learned his lessons from his mini outbursts on-court this past fortnight, and he would look to keep those at bay and focus only on the job at hand.
One more important fact to consider here is that both of them are keenly aware of their strengths on-court and would not like to risk their game for the sake of winning a point. They will not force themselves to experiment on-court like Federer, whose approach basically would be to figure out a way when his core strengths fail him on a particular day.
While this approach particularly helped Federer in winning some magical matches, it didn't work out mostly for the others. When it comes to Medvedev and Nadal, they have a distinguished idea about what they are going to do on a tennis court and there is no question of a strategic fail mid-match. If it fails, they lose the match and it's as simple as that for both these players.
Even if one watches the highlights of the semi-final contest between Medvedev and Dimitrov, it was Dimitrov who had all the elegant winners but the match landed on Medvedev's lap in the end. This shows how similar the approach of Medvedev is to that of Djokovic's game.
So, the tennis world is about to witness a structured display of on-court brilliance from two players who have a clear idea of what they are going to offer and for Medvedev to be able to lift his first Major title, a lot depends on the way he handles the crowd and how far he is going to let it affect his mind.
To conclude, Medvedev should have Nadal's mental toughness in his arsenal to be able to taste victory, else it is going to be a 19th Major title for one of the most loved athletes on this planet.