Medvedev mixes grace and guile to outsmart friend Rublev at US Open

As every tennis fan of a certain age knows, the sport has already had a Big Cat: Miloslav Mecir, the 6’3” Slovak who eased the ball around the court deceptively enough to reach two Grand Slam finals and win gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, before back problems forced him to retire at 26.

But if that nickname hadn’t already been handed out, it would apply equally well to Daniil Medvedev—maybe better, because, at 6’6” the Russian is even bigger than Mecir. And even more so than Mecir, Medvedev plays with a cat-like mix of grace and guile. He can lounge at the back of the court for half a set, before suddenly leaping forward to pounce on his unsuspecting opponent. The 24-year-old did both with perfect strategic timing in his 7-6 (6), 6-3, 7-6 (5) quarterfinal win over his friend and countryman Andrey Rublev.

“One point decided two sets,” Medvedev said of a match that was certainly tighter than the term “straight sets” would imply. For the vast majority of it, whoever was serving was in firm control; Medvedev earned one break point, which he converted, while Rublev earned none. But then there were those two tiebreakers, and that’s when we saw that the Bigger Cat really did have the tennis equivalent of nine lives.

The consensus coming in was that Rublev, who is ranked below Medvedev and who had never beaten him at the pro level, had to have the first set. He played like knew it, too, building a 5-1, and then 6-3, lead in the first-set tiebreaker. But from there, with no margin to work with, Medvedev made all the right moves.

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At 3-6, after spending most of the first set counterpunching from behind the baseline, he stepped inside it and hit a down the line backhand that surprised Rublev and skidded past him. At 4-6, Medvedev went bigger-than-normal again with his serve and won the point with it. Then, at 5-6, he backed up, and let a nervous Rublev try to win the set; instead, his forehand drifted just wide. At 6-6, after the change of ends, Medvedev hit the shot of the match, a Djokovichian running backhand that he hooked just inside the sideline. That shot surprised Rublev, too, and he put a forehand into the net. Finally, at 7-6, Medvedev bombed an ace. The set was his, and for all intents and purposes, so was the match.

“Usually, he’s very aggressive,” Medvedev said of Rublev, “but today he was trying to put the ball in the court more. So I decided to be really aggressive in the first-set tiebreaker, and it worked out for me.”

“I think it was a very tactical game today.”

Medvedev also turned the third-set tiebreaker into a chess match, and again he was one move ahead of Rublev. This time the moment of quiet surprise came at 4-3. After spending virtually the entire match returning serve from 10 feet behind the baseline, and allowing Rublev to kick his second serve gently into the court, Medvedev charged in—stealthily, of course—took the ball on the rise, and knocked off a backhand return winner. He led 5-3 and won it 7-5.

Not all of Medvedev’s tricks work; at 5-4 in the tiebreaker, he tried to throw in a surprise serve-and-volley and lost the point. But the fact that he’s always trying something, and his opponent never knows quite what it will be, is enough to give him a long-term advantage. Medvedev is, to use an overused term, a disruptor.

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He’s also, in his own way, a powerful shot-maker. Rublev is known as the  harder hitter, but it was Medvedev who had 50 winners to just 22 for Rublev today. By not trying to rip the cover off of every ball, the way Rublev typically does, Medvedev retains the element of surprise.

“He kind of lulls you to sleep, and then strikes from a difficult position,” ESPN’s Brad Gilbert said after watching one Medvedev forehand come screaming out of the far reaches of the court and go for a winner.

With his long frame, and his ability to lay back and attack from deep in the court, Medvedev expands, elongates, and complicates the game in a way that I’m not sure anyone else has. Now he’s into his second straight US Open semifinal, and may be the favorite to win it all this time. Mecir, the first Big Cat, made the final here in 1986. The second one may be heading for even bigger things this weekend.