Fans might have been hopeful of a tight encounter but Medvedev dominated the entire game and secured a vital win.
Follow Us
Top seed Daniil Medvedev added another feather to his cap as he beat American tennis player Reilly Opelka on Sunday to win the Canadian Open. The victory will give the Russian athlete a lot of confidence heading into the US Open. Fans might have been hopeful of a tight encounter but Medvedev dominated the entire game and secured the victory. The match ended in a straight-sets victory for the Russian. The scoreline at the end of the fixture was 6-4, 6-3 in the Russian’s favour. Opelka had beaten two heavyweights in Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios to reach the final but Medvedev proved to be a little too much for him.
Opelka did score more aces than Medvedev with eight whereas the Russian managed to score six. In terms of double faults, the American was once again better off as he committed three compared to Medvedev’s four. The Russian had a very strong advantage when it came to the first serve, however. He had an incredible 88% win percentage on the first serve whereas Opelka could only manage 63%. It was the same story on the second serve as Medvedev had a win percentage of 74% whereas Opelka could only manage 44%.
Medvedev won three out of the seven available break points and prevented Opelka from scoring any of his four available ones. The Russian won nine service games in total whereas Opelka scored seven. It was a very good effort from the American but the top seed was just too strong. Fatigue might have also played a part since Medvedev’s match was over in under an hour whereas Opelka played a long game against Tsitsipas.
“It’s hard to disrupt him, hard to hurt him, hard to really hurt him,” Opelka said after the match.
“Medvedev is top three best returners in the world, you could say. I’d say especially for a big guy, maybe he’s No. 2 behind Novak for like a server like myself, because he’s long.”
“He can afford to stand far back, because he’s lanky. He has like a really long reach. He’s got a good wingspan. Yeah, and he’s fast. He’s a good athlete. As fast as he is he’s able to get out of the corners quick, he’s able to play deep back in the corner to me. Yeah, it’s tough. There’s not many answers when he’s on like he was today,” the American added.
There was a shock on the cards over at the women’s side as fourth-ranked seed Karolina Pliskova failed to defeat Italian player Camila Giorgi in the final. The match ended 6-3, 7-3 in favour of the Italian. Giorgi had scored seven aces whereas Pliskova could only manage four. When it comes to double faults, both were tied with six each.
Giorgi had a 71% win percentage on the first serve whereas Pliskova could only manage 64%. The Italian retained her form on the second serve as she once again recorded a 71% win percentage but Pliskova, this time, could only get 59%. Giorgi won nine service games while her opponent won seven.
