The second-round Monte-Carlo Masters match between Matteo Berrettini and Daniil Medvedev was extremely one-sided, but not in the way many tennis fans might have assumed. The Russian, and former ATP No. 1, didn't win a game against the Italian.
In fact, Medvedev, the seven-seed in the tournament, didn't even hold a game point on his own serve. He had never been double-bageled before losing to Berrettini 6-0, 6-0, but now he has. He was awful, but more importantly, the Italian might have played the match of his life.
He said as much after the match, stating, "I think it was one of the best performances of my life. I think I missed three shots in the entire match, and it is not easy against a tricky player like Daniil...I was not expecting to win zero, zero like that. But I kept my focus as I know one break or two breaks is not enough sometimes, so I kept pushing."
Mattero Berretini puts on astonishing performance against Daniil Medvedev at the Monte-Carlo Masters
The statistics for the match were what one would expect. Medvedev had one ace, but five double-faults, and he had three winners but 27 unforced errors. He landed just 36 percent of his first serves.
Berrettini was playing brilliantly and efficiently at the same time. He only had eight winners, but just seven unforced errors. He won 73 percent of his first serves, but 83 percent of his second serves. He did most of his damage from the baseline and only played one net point.
Daniil Medvedev played as if he wanted to end his run at the Monte-Carlo Masters early. That is unlikely, of course, and clay has never been his best surface, but never has he lost in the manner he did to Berrettini, and he is unlikely to ever do so again.
For Matteo Berrettini, who has ranked as high as No. 6 but was only No. 90 entering the event, he will test his momentum next against the winner of the Joao Fonseca versus Arthur Rinderknech match in the third round. If Berrettini wins that, he will have achieved a career-best result in Monte-Carlo.