Athletistic/Tennis. Daniil Medvedev became the first racket in the world and won the Grand Slam tournament, but an interesting fact from his biography is that he never won the same tournament twice in a row, although he already has 20 trophies to the ATP.

Medvedev will this week attempt to defend the title he won last year in Dubai. Previously, he had repeatedly been on the verge of defending his title at the 2021 ATP Finals Tournament and the 2021 Masters in Paris. These two tournaments come at a time when Medvedev is at the peak of his career and wins his first Grand Slam in the United States.

He lost the final of the Paris Masters and the Final Tournament against Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev respectively.

The question arises: is defending the title a weakness for Medvedev? Not really. The ATP Tour is very competitive and defending a title is not an easy task. The bigger the tournament, the tougher the competition. And most of Medvedev’s recent victories have come in major tournaments; in recent years he has practically not participated in small tournaments; there is no point wasting money on this.

From ATP 250 winner to Masters 1000 champion

Of Daniil Medvedev’s 20 titles, eight have been won at the ATP 250 level. However, six of them came in 2021 or earlier – during a period when he was not the force he currently is on the ATP circuit.

The US Open victory propelled Medvedev to the top of his game and allowed him to stop going to smaller tournaments where defending a title might be a little easier.

Since then, the Russian has only won two ATP 250 tournaments: Los Cabos in 2022 and the Qatar Open in 2023. He has not participated in any of these tournaments this year. He also won the ABN AMRO Open in Rotterdam last year, but did not participate in that tournament in 2024 either.

The Dubai Tennis Championships will be the first title he plans to defend since the Erste Bank Open in Vienna last year. This time he was close to winning, but lost in the final to Jannik Sinner.

The tournament starting in Dubai is a great opportunity to end a streak of failures and defend the title for the first time. There is no Djokovic in this tournament, no Alcaraz or Sinner. Medvedev is therefore the first seed.

Apart from him, there are only two players in the top 10 of the ATP rankings: Andrey Rublev and Hubert Hurkacz. Daniil wins personal matches against his compatriot with a score of 7-2 in personal matches and has a score of 3-3 with the Pole.

Previously, Medvedev missed a number of tournaments due to fatigue and also suffered a leg injury, but the courts in Dubai are not the fastest and should work in his favor.

If Medvedev is in good shape, he can definitely reach the final. But the lack of match practice could take its toll and the title defense could be postponed to another tournament.

Vyacheslav Gorbachev/Athletistic


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