Twelve months after he was swatted aside by Daniil Medvedev in the Miami Open final, Jannik Sinner repaid the favour with interest.
If their Hard Rock Stadium rematch offered Sinner a yardstick by which to measure his progress since this time last year, it was one he used to administer the most brutal of cudgellings, a 6-1, 6-2 beatdown that leaves the 22-year-old Italian within one win of dislodging Carlos Alcaraz as world No 2. Through to his third final at Miami Gardens in four years, he will face Grigor Dimitrov on Sunday after the Bulgarian followed up his shock quarter-final win against Alcaraz with a 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4 victory over Alexander Zverev.
As Sinner systematically dismantled Medvedev, it was hard to imagine that his defeat in last season’s final was his sixth in succession against the Russian. How things have changed in the interim. Since claiming a maiden win over Medvedev last October in Beijing, Sinner has won five in a row against the 28-year-old, beating him in Vienna, Turin and, most significantly, at the Australian Open in January, where he fought back from two sets to love down to win his first grand slam title.
The last of those meetings had a significant bearing on the early stages of their latest encounter as Medvedev, seeking to replicate the tactics that earned him a seemingly unassailable lead in Melbourne, adopted a more aggressive return position and tried to play higher than normal in the baseline exchanges. What he could not reproduce, in the face of a flawless exhibition of ball-striking from Sinner, was the same quality and consistency of shot he found in Australia.
After conceding the first five games in just 27 minutes, barely avoiding a first-set whitewash, Medvedev altered his tactics, retreating behind the baseline to return as he sought to create the kind of trench warfare in which he specialises. It did little to stall the momentum of an opponent who has now prevailed in all but one of his 23 matches this season.
“I played very solid today, especially in the beginning of the sets,” said Sinner. “Then, after, he missed couple of shots where usually he is not missing them.
“Even if the difference is quite small from one player to the other one, if one plays a little bit better that day and the other player plays a little bit worse, sometimes the difference is big. Today it was like this.
“But in the other way, you have to be careful, because the score is this one, but if he breaks me early in the first set, or if he breaks me with the break point he had at 2-1 in the second set, things are going to change.”
In truth, that never looked likely. Imperious on serve throughout, Sinner won 80% of the points behind his first delivery and an impressive 59% on the second, fending off all three break points he faced over the 69 minutes that Medvedev was able to detain him. Allied with his superior consistency – the official stats suggested Sinner made just three unforced errors to Medvedev’s nine, although the tournament had those figures at 12 and 22, which may have been closer to the truth – it proved an irresistible combination.
“My plan was to play aggressive kind of like in Australia, a bit more aggressive than I usually do, and it’s always a risk,” said Medvedev. “In Australia it worked well. Here, I was missing too much.
“Before the second set, the question was, do I go back to playing my style or continue this way? Because if we saw Alcaraz against him in Indian Wells [it] was the same, 6-1, kind of easy, and then Carlos managed to step up and play better and beat Jannik.
“I was like, ‘No, I want to try to do the same,’ and I didn’t manage to do it. [By the] time I decided to, let’s say, play my game, it was a bit too late.”
Thanks to the resurgent Dimitrov, Sinner will not need to go through Alcaraz this time around. The 32-year-old backed up his win over the Spaniard with another demonstration of quality and resilience against Zverev, his serve the bedrock of a performance awash with power, artistry and athleticism. Dimitrov attributes his renaissance to a rediscovered work ethic.
“I kept on believing, kept on doing the work,” said Dimitrov, who will return to the top 10 for the first time since 2018 next week. “I think the discipline brought me to that moment. There is nothing else.”
A semi-finalist in Shanghai and finalist in Paris towards the end of last year, Dimitrov has been knocking on the door at this level. He won his first title since 2017 at the Brisbane International in January and has earned his place back at the game’s top table. Sinner is under no illusions about the threat that lies ahead.
“He’s very, very talented physically,” said the Italian. “Really good shape. He has the talent to change things up on a tennis court because of the way he plays. He can stand back, he can go close. He has very, very good hand skills. He can do whatever he wants.”
It is Sinner who has become accustomed to doing whatever he wants in recent months. He will go into the final as an unbackable favourite, but if Dimitrov can reproduce the level that has brought three successive top-10 wins this week, a fourth is not out of the question.