No. 1 seed Daniil Medvedev (Russia) advanced to the quarterfinals of the $3.1 million hard court tournament in Dubai (UAE).
Defending his title from last year, Medvedev beat Lorenzo Sonego (Italy) 3:6, 6:3, 6:3 in two hours of play.
“I came out on the court and I didn’t feel good. I was too nervous and too tight, which doesn’t happen to me often. I made a lot of mistakes. Sometimes it takes a set to calm down and if I keep doing what I did in the first set, nothing was going to work. I just had to change, be better calm and it worked out,” said the Russian after the match, “Top Sport” reported.
Medvedev made the decisive break in the eighth game of the second set to level, before breaking his opponent’s serve twice in the third to cruise to victory.
In the next round, he will play against eighth-seeded Alejandro Davidovic Fokina (Spain), who led 7:6(7), 1:0, after which Jakub Menšík (Czech Republic) refused to continue the match.
Fifth seed Hugo Humber (France) eliminated former world number 1 Andy Murray (Great Britain) 6-2, 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals. He also achieved his first career victory over Murray, who lifted the trophy in Dubai in 2017.
In other matches of the tournament, the second-seeded Andrei Rublev (Russia), champion from 2022, beat the Frenchman Arthur Cazo 6:4, 6:4. #7 Aleksandar Bublik (Kazakhstan) also moves on after success over Talon Griekspor (Netherlands) 7:6(8), 7:6(2). Jiri Lehechka (Czech Republic) won against the fourth seed Karen Khachanov (Russia) 6:7(6), 7:6(5), 6:4, and Sebastian Korda (USA) defeated Botik van de Zandshulp (Netherlands) with 6:1, 6:0.
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