The rise of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner over the past two years has been imperious and has forced other players to raise their level in order not to move away from the top positions in the ATP ranking. The Spanish champion and the Italian ace shared equally the four Grand Slam titles this year, while other top players such as Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev had to settle for placings.
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The Greek player was hoping to finally win a Major without Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, also taking into account Novak Djokovic's age-related decline. The feeling is that the champion from Athens has a much lower level of play than Alcaraz and Sinner right now, suffering especially from the Spaniard's style of play.
Stefanos faced Carlitos at the French Open for the second year in a row and failed to win a single set, giving the feeling of being at the mercy of his opponent. Tsitsipas' season cannot be considered fully satisfactory (despite his triumph in Monte Carlo), nor can Medvedev's, who has yet to win a title this year.
The Greek and the Russian will face each other in the round of 16 of the Shanghai Masters 1000, in a match that promises excitement and balance. The penultimate Masters 1000 of the season is very important and represents a chance for many players to accumulate points ahead of the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.
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An important clash
The match between Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas is sure to be one of the most interesting in the Shanghai Masters 1000 Round of 16. The Greek champion is down 9 to 4 in the previous matches, but he wants to reverse the trend and finally get a good result in a difficult year.
Tsitsipas' season so far has been quite disappointing and the Greek champion has had more lows than highs. The challenge against Medvedev-one of his biggest opponents in the circus-can revive the Greek and eventually he could face the winner between Sinner and Ben Shelton, here are his words in the press conference: In the final I didn't do well, I lost concentration after having a good match. I was frustrated with some of my shots and things were not going, I gave him the break with a series of errors and I was not convinced. I have faced such moments before and the only thing to do was to eliminate negative thoughts.
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Tsitsipas then talked about the upcoming challenge with Medvedev and was quite clear about it, He gets exalted in stadiums like this, I feel I am growing and I need a big win to improve. I want to play my best tennis and things will take their own course. My relationship with Medvedev? I respect him very much, certainly much more than before. We had clashes in the past, both on and off the court, but now it's all resolved, we talked about it and reached a real understanding. I like to close issues and not leave them unresolved. Medvedev's tennis is definitely not normal, it is different and in the past I would have criticized him but I would definitely have been wrong. He is a unique and original player, different from what we find around.
Many expectations
Despite reaching the final at the Australian Open earlier this year and the semifinals at the Wimbledon Championships, Daniil cannot be happy with his 2024. Lately, the former world No. 1 has been complaining a lot about balls that - in his opinion - would only favor certain players: "These balls are not good enough for professional tennis. This is one of the biggest tournaments in the world and the balls are destroyed after 5 games. No pressure at all.
I dont think anyone is changing. I think it basically favors people who can benefit power from dead balls. Some have better quality with this. Some dont. Actually the two best players at doing this.. theyre already the best players in the world.. and Im sure they would be without the balls, but with these balls.. theyre the only players who can generate crazy power. Its Jannik and Carlos. It gives them an extra edge.
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The 2021 US Open champion explained his point of view: "I admit that sometimes I go crazy. Ive spent my whole life trying to find a way to stay on the edge and keep calm, but you never know what might work at times. There have been times when I crossed the line and that cant be, but today was not one of them.
