Daniil Medvedev ended Novak Djokovic’s 20-match profitable streak by beating the world’s top-ranked participant 6-4, 6-4 to succeed in the ultimate on the Dubai Championships on Friday.
The third-seeded Medvedev will face defending champion Andrey Rublev in an all-Russian closing of the hard-court event.
The former No. 1 participant picked up trophies in Rotterdam and Doha earlier than coming to Dubai and beating Djokovic to increase his profitable streak to 13 matches, the second longest of his profession.
Medvedev broke Djokovic twice within the first set and once more to open the second, finally closing it out on his first match level.
Medvedev hadn’t overwhelmed Djokovic because the 2021 U.S. Open closing for his first — and solely — main title. That win denied Djokovic the primary calendar-year Grand Slam in males’s singles since 1969.
Djokovic then gained their subsequent 4 conferences.
But Medvedev improved to 5-3 in opposition to Djokovic when the Serb is ranked first.
Djokovic was competing in his first occasion since profitable the Australian Open for his record-equaling twenty second Grand Slam singles title. He hadn’t misplaced since November when he dropped the Paris Masters closing to Holger Rune.
Earlier, Rublev superior by beating Alexander Zverev 6-3, 7-6 (9) within the different semifinal. He wanted six match factors to lastly put away Zverev for his first tour-level win over the German.
Rublev misplaced all 5 earlier matches in opposition to his longtime pal, who reached his first semifinal because the French Open final June.
The sixth-ranked Rublev saved a set level within the second-set tiebreaker.
“Today, when I was going on court, I was thinking I have nothing to lose. He always beat me, so why I need to be tight,” Rublev stated.
Last yr, he beat Jiri Vesely for the title.
Rublev has overwhelmed Medvedev the final two instances they squared off together with on the ATP Finals final November.
That match is healthier remembered for Rublev’s enchantment for peace. He wrote “Peace, Peace, Peace, All we need,” on a TV digital camera lens. He made an identical enchantment shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine simply over a yr in the past.