Daniil Medvedev sent an emphatic message to quarter-final opponent Jannik Sinner after thrashing Portugal’s Nuno Borges.
In his last six outings in New York, Daniil Medvedev has reached the quarter-finals at the US Open five times, defeated only by Nick Kyrgios in the fourth round.
Broken just once in the match, as he went down 2-1 in the third set, fifth seed Medvedev immediately broke back and won five of the next six games to advance 6-0, 6-1, 6-3.
His opponent Nuno Borges had been thoroughly enjoying his time on the ATP Tour, notably defeating Rafael Nadal in the Swedish Open final a week before the Olympics.
Unable however to make any sort of mark on this match however, Portugal’s number one still climbs into the top 30 after his best run at a major to date.
Daniil Medvedev provides update own his shoulder ahead of US Open quarter-final
The Russian suffered an uncharacteristically poor build-up to the US Open, with two early exits in Montreal and Cincinnati.
Coming into New York, doubts circulated over the Russian’s form, despite the eventual upsets coming to rivals Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
Referencing his defeat in Melbourne to Sinner, Medvedev outlined the state of his physical condition since.
“I had not an easy time after the Australian Open where it [his shoulder] was probably hurting because of the Australian Open itself, where I had some crazy matches,” the fifth seed explained.
“Then I missed some tournaments and I didn’t know if maybe I should take some time off or not, so that was not an easy moment.”
Having been forced to retire at Rome this year against Jiri Lehecka, the Russian has been nursing several knocks coming into the ruthless American hard court season.
He continued: “It’s like we have a lot of pain that sometimes are there, sometimes or not, this one was a bit more at one moment. The toughest thing was that it was more in practice, in the match you have adrenaline, but in the practice I couldn’t practice serve.
“I spoke about it when I knew it was getting better and now I am practicing a lot of serves and I’m pretty happy with my serve.”
Daniil Medvedev vs Jannik Sinner feels like the real US Open final
After Nadal pulled out of the US Open and the upsets suffered by Alcaraz and Djokovic, Sinner and Medvedev remain the only players remaining to have won a major title.
Medvedev is 7-5 against Sinner, and was victorious in their most recent five-set thriller in the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Sinner however has won five of their previous six encounters, including the Australian Open final where the Italian came back from two sets down to win the title.
On the other side of the draw sits this year’s French Open runner-up Alexander Zverev, who remains the favorite to reach the final.
However, with Zverev up against his Wimbledon conqueror and American number one Taylor Fritz, the men’s draw remains wide open.
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