Bautista Agut Tops Medvedev And Continues Quest For Sunshine Single
By Humzah Azeem
Russian Daniil Medvedev fell apart mentally in this weaponless battle against Roberto Bautista Agut, leaving the field open for a new Masters 1000 winner.
On paper, this match should have been wildly uninteresting. You could use the word flat to describe their groundstrokes or how you expected your emotions to be. Seriously, the RPMs on these guys’ forehands has to be two of the lowest on tour. And their counterpunching nature should’ve been tennis to fall asleep to. But against all odds, Bautista Agut won, and made it a match worth watching.
Miami is always a phenomenal tournament to watch, following Indian Wells to complete what is known as the Sunshine Double, most years the lineup is stacked. Due to Indian Wells being postponed, many top players, such as the Big 3 (Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer) elected not to make the trip to the United States for a week of play, and instead are training for the upcoming clay court season. This left the door wide open for an array of hungry new comers, like Medvedev, Tsitsipas, Zverev, Rublev, and Sinner, among others.
Medvedev was the top seeded man and arrived in the quarterfinals with a few solid wins, one of which was a miraculous and gutsy battle against Australian Alexei Popyrin. The Russian waddled to the line to serve the match out, suffering from serious cramps that made it seem like he might have to shake hands early. Never one to bail, he suffered and made it through, taking full advantage of the young Australian tightening up in the big moments.
Today, he should have been able to push Roberto Bautista Agut around and at minimum, found a way to win. He should have been able to use his serve and movement to dictate play and force the issue. He hasn’t beaten the Spaniard in his career yet but was certainly the favorite coming in. RBA doesn’t have any weapons and is the epitome of a Spanish backboard. We all expected a tight affair with some extended rallies with little flair, and that was essentially what we got in the first set.
Up until the final few games, both players were doing a good job keeping the ball in play and waiting it out, but as it frequently does with two counterpunchers, a little bit of luck seemed to tilt the scales. At 4-4, Medvedev looked as though he was in shape for a routine hold but an RBA forehand clipped the tape, dribbled over and that seemed to change things. Bautista Agut began coming into the net to close out points and showed his willingness to put the ball away on the slow courts of Miami. The Spaniard somehow managed to break serve, which resulted in the destruction of Technifibre’s finest. Medvedev was so enraged that he smashed the racket a second time on his way to his chair. He seemed to regroup slightly in the following game, but Bautista Agut found a way to hold, and he took the set 6-4. The story of the first set was Medvedev unforced errors.
No one expected a blowout, yet here we are following a true breakdown. Medvedev was broken early in the second set and it didn’t look like he wanted to be out there by the end of the match. Flailing at a backhand with one hand in his final service game, earned him groans from the crowd. The reason Spanish players are so good is that they will give you absolutely nothing. Coming into this match, we all knew that RBA would play at a certain level. The real question always is, how will Medvedev play today? Is he going to be the player we’ve seen him be in five set matches where he grinds with the best, putting his body on the line, or is he going to be the guy who hasn’t won a match at the French Open? Very much like Djokovic, when he is at his best, he’s unbeatable but also allows his emotions to affect his level enough to cost him key points to swing matches. That is exactly what happened today as he unceremoniously bowed out of Florida.
This match offered very little on the surface yet provided an interesting end to the evening session. The players’ styles are somewhat similar but the rallies were aesthetically pleasing. Some matches are fun to watch, and it’s hard to explain why. This is one of them. Sometimes matchups seem like they will be instant classics, but aren’t… we won’t point fingers but a Thiem-Zverev match might check that box. The way the Spaniard was able to break the Russian down was what few saw coming, but it wasn’t entirely surprising. This was no blockbuster upset, but Medvedev’s performance raises some eyebrows. His performance in the Australian Open was frustrating to watch but is evidently something he needs to work through. Bautista Agut earned himself a matchup with the “not human” Italian Jannik Sinner, who was described as an alien by his opponent Alexander Bublik. That will no doubt be a phenomenal matchup, with implications reaching far past this week. It will be a treat to see the young Italian up against a veteran who won’t break down. Today the Spaniard was too good, let’s see how he recovers.