Sixth seed Daniil Medvedev brushed aside Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov 6-1, 6-2 in 82 minutes to reach the final at the indoor hard-court tournament in Rotterdam for the first time.
🚨WARNING: There seems to be an unstoppable train thundering through. 🚄
Medvedev puts up another exceptional performance at the #abnamroopen to defeat Dimitrov: 6-1 6-2. 🌟
The former world No.1️⃣ will play his first final in @rotterdamahoy on Sunday. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/hWLFf443xZ
— ABN AMRO Open (@abnamroopen) February 18, 2023
“It was an amazing match,” said Medvedev. “The score [looks] easy, but the match was not. I felt physically like I was playing five sets.
“[There were] some amazing rallies. It was 2-2, 0/40 for him in the second [set], so [I am happy] to manage to win it 6-2, just raise my level a little bit on serve and manage to keep consistent…
“He made a few more errors than he needed to make, and I’m happy with my level.”
The Russian world No. 11 was typically relentless from the baseline and converted six of 13 break points to reach his first tour-level championship match since he claimed the title in Vienna last October.
A match featuring several marathon exchanges threatened to become more complicated for Medvedev when Dimitrov recovered from 0-2 in the second set to earn three break points at 2-2, 0/40.
Medvedev shut any potential comeback down in style, however, dropping just four more points in the match en route to increasing his ATP Head2Head series lead against Dimitrov to 5-2.
The Russian will play against Jannik Siner or home wild card in his 28th tour-level championship match on Sunday.