Daniil Medvedev got his summer hard-court season off to a perfect start in Los Cabos on Saturday night, capturing the 14th ATP title of his career—and his first of the year—with a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Cam Norrie, the defending champion at the ATP 250 event.
The No. 1-ranked Russian had lost his last five ATP finals in a row coming into the Los Cabos final, but after a hard-fought first set, this one was a runaway.
After the two traded breaks in the fifth and sixth games of the match, Medvedev got a critical break in the seventh game for 4-3, and two games later brought up double set point serving for the set at 5-4, 40-15—Norrie, who won the first ATP title of his career in Los Cabos a year ago, made an inspired escape, winning the next four points in a row to break back for 5-all, but that might have been the British No. 1's last stand.
From 5-all Medvedev steamrolled through the next eight games in a row, closing it out after an hour and 23 minutes with one last unreturnable serve out wide.
“When you play against Cam, you know you have to fight for every point,” Medvedev said in his on-court interview. “I didn’t even play badly in that game at 5-4, but I knew I had to stay there—I just managed to play well from there, and it was enough today.
“Every match here was very good, but the final is always special. In the final you always play the best player of the week. It was a high level match and I’m happy I managed to show some good tennis and some good shots in such an important match.”
