Melbourne (AFP)
Russian second seed Daniil Medvedev reached the final of the Australian Open, the first of the four grand slams in tennis, for the second year in a row, by defeating Greek fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the semi-finals.
Medvedev reached the final of the tournament last year, defeating Tsitsipas in the semi-finals, before losing to Serbian Novak Djokovic, who is excluded from this edition due to the issue of his refusal to receive the anti-Corona vaccine.
And he will meet the Russian in the final match, the Spanish Rafael Nadal, fifth in the world, who defeated Italian Matteo Berrettini in four sets as well.
The 25-year-old will enter the fourth Grand Final of his career, hoping to become the first player since 1968 to win his first two major titles in a row, after winning the last tournaments last season in Flushing Meadows at the expense of Djokovic.
On the other hand, Tsitsipas’ dream of winning his first big title ended and he failed to repeat the achievement of Roland Garros 2021, when the 23-year-old reached his first final in the “Grand Slam” before losing to Djokovic.
Medvedev needed two and a half hours to win his seventh out of 9 matches he has collected so far with Tsitsipas, who won the last meeting between them, and he was in the quarter-finals of Roland Garros last year.
Nadal, 35, is looking forward to the 21st Grand Slam title in his professional career and breaking the record he shares with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovica.
It is the 29th time that Nadal has reached a Grand Slam final, two finals behind the record holders Federer and Djokovic, and the sixth in the Australian Championship crowned title once in 2009 at the expense of Federer, the most prominent absentee from the current version due to injury, and Nadal lost two final matches in 2012 and 2019. In front of Djokovic.