Jannik Sinner of Italy defeated defending winner Daniil Medvedev 6-1, 6-2 in 69 minutes on Friday to advance to the final of the ATP Miami Open. He will face Grigor Dimitrov.
Bulgarian Dimitrov reached his third Masters 1000 series final, defeating fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev 6-4, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4.
Sinner will be the favorite against world number 12 Dimitrov, who defeated Medvedev at Hard Rock Stadium with a display of power and skill.
The Italian fell to the Russian in the Miami final last year, but came back from two sets down to defeat him in the Australian Open final in January.
This time, Sinner dominated from the start, leaving no doubt about the outcome.
Sinner broke Medvedev’s first service game to lead 2-0 in the first set, pinning the Russian in the corner at the end of a long rally and firing a winner past him.
While the 22-year-old appeared fresh and energized, blasting with power from the baseline and imaginative at the net, Medvedev struggled to maintain his serve, and the Italian broke again in the fourth game, capitalizing on his fourth break point.
A startled Medvedev finally held in the sixth game, but Sinner served out to love to seal the first-set victory in only 33 minutes.
It was the same story in the second set, with Sinner breaking into love to begin. The Russian appeared disappointed after missing a break point to fall behind 4-1, one of a string of exceptionally poorly executed strokes from the 28-year-old.
Sinner encountered no resistance on his route to serving out the match, and he admitted that his overwhelming victory was aided by his opponent’s erratic play.
“I felt great on court today. Usually the more you go on in a tournament, the more comfortable you feel and I’m very happy about today’s performance,” he said.
“I think Daniil didn’t feel this well today. He made a lot of mistakes which he usually doesn’t make, so I just took the chance. I was expecting a really tough match.”
Different player, different person
Sinner has won five straight matches against Medvedev after having lost their first six encounters.
Sinner, who enjoyed a run of 19 wins before losing to Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final at Indian Wells, said he is now a very different proposition than when he missed out in the Miami final last year.
“I’m a different player, a different person,” he said.
Medvedev was blunt in his assessment of his performance.
“He played good. I didn’t play well enough. We could speak for hours but in the end I didn’t play good enough, he played good, he won easy. That’s the end of the story, to be honest,” he said.
But he said Sinner had clearly accelerated his improvement over the past year.
“He misses less, he chooses his shots more wisely. He serves 10 times better. You know, Jannik was always serving well, but now he serves like big, big.
“I wonder actually how he made it, because serve is not that easy a shot to work on, and now he’s, yeah, his serve is a big improvement for him”
The second semi-final was a much tighter affair which was decided by a handful of key moments.
Dimitrov, who ousted world number two Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals, broke when 5-4 up in the first set, Zverev mis-timing a return which ballooned out of court to hand the advantage to the Bulgarian.
The big-serving German was solid throughout the second set and while he wobbled at 6-2 up in the tie-break he held on to win 7-4 and force a deciding set.
With Dimitrov always busy, frequently going to the net, Zverev was relying on his baseline play to get him through.
But he was broken in the seventh game when Dimitrov came towards the net, slipped but somehow managed an overhead volley while almost on the floor to win break point.
The Bulgarian was buzzing with energy as he saw out the set and said his improvised winner had shown his mentality.
“I was not letting any balls pass through me…I just thought, OK, I’m seeing the ball, I am going to scramble for it.
“It was a dogfight on both ends, we really went at each other after that first set,” he said.