With the crowd at fever pitch, Frances Tiafoe saved 7 match points. It wasn't enough to even win a set over Daniil Medvedev

HIGHLIGHTS: Medvedev tops Tiafoe in straight sets—but not without drama—for 19th straight win

How do you win 19 straight matches? According to someone who now knows, Daniil Medvedev, “you have to have some crazy shots, crazy points,” to pull it off.

“Crazy” is the only way to describe about a dozen of the shots that the Russian came up with in his 7-5, 7-6 (4) win over Frances Tiafoe in the Indian Wells semifinals on Saturday.

The lion’s share of them were passing shots. Medvedev hit them from his shoe-tops. He hit them from his ankles. He hit them on the full run. He whipped them with his forehand from five feet behind the baseline. He whipped them with his backhand from an inch in front of the net. He even faked one crosscourt and delicately bunted it down the line while Tiafoe was looking the other way.

When play began, it looked as if this would be a baseline chess match. Tiafoe started the way many of us thought he had to start, by using all of his varied weapons to take Medvedev out of his comfortable space behind the baseline. Tiafoe used his short chip backhand; charged the net on second serves; worked the rallies so he could finish with an inside-out forehand; served-and-volleyed here and there. It was enough to keep him close.

But at a certain point, late in the first set, it became clear that there was really no way for Tiafoe, or possibly anyone, to beat Medvedev from the baseline right now. He was making no inroads on Medvedev’s serve; in fact, it was Medvedev who was disrupting Tiafoe’s normal rhythm by sending his second serves into the forehand side, and away from Tiafoe’s favored backhand return. When they did get into rallies, Tiafoe seemed to be overthinking, trying too hard to give Medvedev too many different looks.

So, down a set and a break, Tiafoe scrapped all of that and started to serve and volley on every point. And, since Medvedev has the answer for everything these days, that’s when he started to rip passing-shot winners from every corner of the court.

When Medvedev hit a pass to reach double match point, with Tiafoe serving at 3-5, the afternoon appeared to be over. The crowd was resigned. Tiafoe, who had tried everything and come up empty, hung his head. But he lifted it long enough to force Medvedev to try another running passing shot on his second match point. This time, finally, the ball caught the tape and fell back. The spell had been broken, and Tiafoe was alive.

Medvedev squandered a third match point in that game, and he began to grunt—with effort and nerves—for the first time all day. Serving for the win at 5-4, he looked, as Tennis Channel commentator Jim Courier put it, “twitchy.” He missed an easy backhand and double faulted at break point. The crowd was loud. Two games later, he served for the match again. Now he was even twitchier.

Worse, Tiafoe had finally loosened up. At 6-5, Medvedev reached match point four more times, and Tiafoe saved them all—one with a forehand pass of his own, another with a big forehand return, a third with a swing volley, and the fourth with a perfect drop shot.

Tiafoe gave it his best in the tiebreaker as well, coming back from 1-5 to 4-5. But Medvedev went to his biggest weapon, his serve, to close it out. He hit four aces in the breaker, including one at 5-4 and another at 6-4. Eight match points turned out to be enough to get him his 19th straight win.

Medvedev can still get nervous, despite the walk-on-water confidence he has right now. But even then, even when his opponent is in the zone; even when the crowd is loudly against him; even when he hates the conditions; and even when he’s blown seven match points, he can still win.

On Sunday Medvedev will play for the title; it will take a lot to beat him, even on his least-favorite court in the world.