Can Daniil Medvedev find a way to survive Jannik Sinner, the ATP’s hottest player?

Daniil Medvedev vs. Jannik Sinner

One of these guy’s paths to the final was not like the other.

Sinner has played 19 sets in six matches. He’s dropped one, in a tiebreaker, to Novak Djokovic. Medvedev has played 25 sets in his six matches, three of which have gone to a fifth.

“Physical advantage, I probably don’t have,” Medvedev says. “Tennis advantage, let’s see.”

Medvedev sounded weary when he said those words, after his marathon, and unlikely, semifinal win over Alexander Zverev. He admitted he was tired by the fourth set, just as he had been tired in the fourth set of his quarterfinal win over Hubert Hurkacz. “Destroyed,” actually, is the word Medvedev used to describe his physical state. Yet this cagey competitor found a way to win both times.

He was fortunate that Zverev had also played his share of epics over the last two weeks. He won’t be that fortunate in the final. While Medvedev will come into Sunday’s match with his body held together by a spaghetti string, Sinner will come roaring in with full confidence and seemingly in robust health. At 22, he just recorded the biggest win of his career, by ending Djokovic’s Melbourne Park win streak at 33. Now, two days later, he’ll try to win an even bigger match for the his first Grand Slam title.

“Obviously it means so much to me to beat Novak here in Melbourne,” Sinner says. “But in the other way, I know that the tournament is not over. Sunday is a final. It’s different emotions, because the final is always different.”

One reason Sinner was able to close out Djokovic is that he had beaten him twice last fall. He said those wins “gave me confidence I could potentially do some good results in Grand Slams.” But those weren’t his only confidence-building victories of 2023. After going 0-6 against Medvedev, he beat him three times late last year, two times in finals. All three matches were close, and four of the sets went to tiebreakers. As he did against Djokovic, Sinner had the answers against his former nemesis.

“The three matches, all of them were tough,” Medvedev says. “Two tiebreaks and two three-setters. I had my chances.”

Medvedev said he wasn’t at his best for those contests—only “97, 96” percent—but he also admitted that Sinner had reached “a whole different level.”

“He did a little more serve-and-volley, maybe a little more aggressive,” Medvedev said of how Sinner broke his losing streak against him. “But at the same time that’s what he’s doing against everyone. He’s just playing better.”

Sinner will have the advantage physically, as well as the confidence he gained from his recent wins over Medvedev. But he’ll also be playing his first major final. The Russian knows from experience that this can be nerve-wracking, but he also knows you can get over those nerves pretty quickly. In his first Slam final, at the 2019 US Open, he nearly came back from two sets down to beat Rafael Nadal.

Of course, Medvedev also lost to Nadal from two sets up in Rod Laver Arena, in the 2022 AO final. This time, like that time, he’ll probably come in as a slight underdog, even though he’s the higher-ranked player.

“If I want to beat [Sinner], I have to raise my level on a whole different level,” Medvedev says, “and I will try to do it.”

The question in the end may be: Will his body let him get there? Winner: Sinner