On Wednesday, October 16, an exhibition tournament called Six Kings Slam began in Riyadh. Top-level tennis players arrived in the capital of Saudi Arabia: Daniil Medvedev, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, as well as Holger Rune, who has not yet won a Grand Slam tournament. Read more about what kind of tournament this is and what the format of the competition is in a separate article.
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New battle Medvedev – Sinner: Daniil in search of $6 million at the Six Kings Slam in Riyadh
The first quarterfinal pitted Medvedev, the 2021 US Open champion, against Sinner, a two-time major winner. The Russian recently played the Italian in the quarterfinals of the Shanghai Masters, and then Yannick defeated Daniil 6-1, 6-4. Of the last eight official meetings with Medvedev, Sinner has won seven. However, at the end of today’s match the score in the direct confrontation remained the same (7-7), since the ATP does not take into account the results of exhibition tournaments in its statistics.
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Before the start of the tournament, Medvedev said that he was ready to win. “Ready to fight. Ready to try to win. I look forward to the continuation of the season and my good play in this tournament,” Daniil said in a video posted on the tournament’s official social media account.
The Medvedev-Sinner match opened the program of the entire tournament, and before starting, the organizers put on a large-scale light show.
Before the start of the Medvedev-Sinner match. Transmission frame
Photo: Screenshot of the broadcast.
And the technical team responsible for the broadcast surprised us with the choice of angle. This is how high and far away the main camera was located:
Medvedev – Sinner match. Transmission frame
Photo: Screenshot of the broadcast.
Despite the exhibition nature of the match, Sinner played as if it were at least a Slam semi-final. The Italian ran around the court, biting every ball, and Medvedev could do little. In the middle of the first set there was a segment in which the Russian took only two points. At the same time, the first and fifth games developed into a more tenacious battle. In the fifth game, Daniil reached game balls for the first time, but did not use them, committing two double faults, including one on break point. And Yannick made the third consecutive break. Serving for the set at 5-0, Sinner missed a triple set point, escaped a break point, Medvedev’s first, took advantage of the fourth set point and handed the “wheel” to his opponent: 6-0 in just 27 minutes.
Interestingly, Medvedev lost the set 0-6 for the first time since February 2020. Then, in the quarterfinals in Marseille he lost 4:6, 0:6 to Gilles Simon, his current coach. We can only console ourselves with the fact that this match will not appear in the official statistics.
Daniil Medvedev at the Six Kings Slam – 2024
Photo: Richard Pelham/Getty Images
In the second set, Sinner didn’t stop there and continued to win back serves with confidence, facing break points in other games. At first, Medvedev won them back, but in the fifth game he still allowed his opponent to take the lead with a break, making another double on break point (3:2).
In the eighth game, Medvedev almost broke the ball for the first time. He got a triple break point, didn’t use it, reached the fourth, also missed and threw his racket in frustration. And after a couple of plays, instead of 4:4, it turned out 5:3 in favor of Sinner. Afterwards, Daniil took out his anger with his racket a couple more times, hitting it on the court. The ninth game, in which Yannick took advantage of the second match point in the reception, was the last: 6:0, 6:3 in favor of the Italian in 1 hour and 9 minutes.
Thus, Sinner will play 24-time TBS champion Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Yannick will continue fighting for $6 million, and Daniil will receive $1.5 million. And the winner of the second quarterfinal, Alcaraz-Rune, will fight 22-time Major winner Rafael Nadal in the semifinals.
The semifinals will be played on Thursday, October 17, the match for 3rd place and the final on Saturday, October 19.
At the ATP-250 tournament in Almaty the second round matches began. Today the Russian tennis player Aslan Karatsev played, who qualified for the tournament. In the first round, Karatsev defeated Chinese sixth seed Zhang Zhizhen 6:4, 7:6 (7:2). Aslan’s opponent in the round of 16 was former Russian and now Kazakh tennis player Alexander Shevchenko. Karatsev is only 139th in the world rankings and Shevchenko is 61st.
In the first round of this year’s Roland Garros, Shevchenko defeated Karatsev in an intense confrontation 6:4, 4:6, 1:6, 6:1, 6:4. Today Aslan lost the fight again. In the first set, nothing worked for Karatsev on the court. The Russian made mistakes regularly (16 unforced errors per game) and rarely made successful moves (only three winners). Aslan lost six games out of seven and Alexander was close to the wheel, but did not convert the break point in the fourth game. Otherwise, he had no problems. In the seventh game, Shevchenko took advantage of the third set point: 6:1 in just 28 minutes.
The second set had nothing to do with the first. In the first six games only two points were scored. With the score 3:3, Shevchenko tried to hold on and with 40:0 on Karatsev’s serve he managed it “exactly”, but nothing more. In the eighth game, Aslan himself faced a break point for the first time, but could not take advantage of it (4:4). After this, the players seemed to agree on a tiebreaker. Karatsev got a triple set point for 6:3. On the next play, Aslan fell unpleasantly, twisting his ankle, and fears arose that the tennis player might retire. However, the Russian was able to continue the game and finally took the game 7:6 (7:5) in 1 hour and 2 minutes.
Aslan Karatsev sprained his ankle. Transmission frame
Photo: Screenshot of the broadcast.
Before the deciding set, Karatsev, who took a medical break, had his ankle taped to minimize the risk of injury. The beginning of the game was reminiscent of the previous set: everyone took their games without the slightest hint of break points. The turning point came in the fifth game: Shevchenko made length errors three times in a row and Karatsev took the lead with a break. Confirming this, Aslan put the service at zero (4:2).
The Russian could not maintain his advantage. In the eighth game they made mistakes again and Shevchenko made the break 4:4. This allowed Alexander to reach match points on the twelfth game reception. Karatsev saved the first match point, but missed the second, hitting the net, and Shevchenko advanced to the quarterfinals 6:1, 6:7 (5:7), 7:5 in 2 hours and 17 minutes.
The tournament in Almaty will end on October 20. Follow all the events of the “Championship”.
