Australian Open in Melbourne, Final, Sunday, 28.01.2024
Alexander Zverev missed out on his second Grand Slam final by the narrowest of margins. He lost a five-set marathon to Daniil Medvedev, who will definitely have a “freshness disadvantage” against Jannik Sinner in the final after his fifth full-length match.
The South Tyrolean goes into the match as the clear favorite, having defeated the giant Novak Djokovic for the third time in just a few months. Will he live up to this role against Medvedev in his Major Final debut?
I actually reckon he will win and even dare to go for the outright 3:0 success at Bet365.
He is not only much stronger in Melbourne, but also much fresher and managed to do something against Djokovic that no one before him has managed. I’ll tell you more about this in my Sinner Medvedev tip
No player has come through the rounds as smoothly as Sinner. He is currently the player of the moment on hard court. He already defeated Djokovic in the group stage at the ATP Finals in front of his home crowd.
Although he ultimately lost to the former champion in the final, he returned the favor with two further victories. First, he showed the Serb the limits at the Davis Cup – and now he only conceded one set to him in the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
The most successful tennis player had not lost any of his semi-final and final matches in Melbourne before. Djokovic only had the upper hand in the tie-break of the third set.
The South Tyrolean dictated the other sets from start to finish, as he had done in previous matches. After all, it was the only set loss in Down Under so far
A few years ago, a Teeanger-Sinner was on the training court with Djokovic and gave him the tip to play more consistently and with more variety. The now 22-year-old internalized the advice, and the Serb felt it first-hand.
Sinner distributed the balls on the court with a remarkable variety of strokes and, with a low error rate, only let the points slip out of his hands when Djokovic went for an ace, a service winner or a parade shot with a lot of risk in the rally.
Remarkable: Djokovic, probably the player with the highest return on the tour, did not create a single break chance. He served only 58 percent first serves.
A historic zero, as Djokovic had not only had one or more break chances in every Grand Slam match of his career, but had also converted at least one. The South Tyrolean has now ended this long streak.
With no experience of finals, Germany’s best bookmakers now also expect Sinner to win the final. He starts the match with odds of 1.33, Medvedev stands at 3.25.
For me, it’s not a question of the winner, but of the length of the match. Bet365 is serving up 1.69 odds for the -1.5 set handicap. That’s much better than the 1.33 for the general win odds, which would also cover the arduous five-set win.
But the Russian is unlikely to make it that far, not against the strong-running Sinner, who has hardly made any mistakes in the tournament and has far fewer hours of play under his belt than Medvedev, who has three five-set matches behind him, including two in a row.
In the last two rounds alone, he spent a total of two hours more on court. But even with the same physicality, I see Sinner ahead, who, as a mature top player, is steering the duel statistics against Medvedev more and more in his direction.
Medvedev won the first six meetings, but recently lost three times in a row to the former giant slalom specialist. The matches were not long ago, he prevailed in the finals in Beijing and Vienna and also in the semi-finals of the ATP Finals
Say: Three wins in around three months, that gives you confidence. The tiebreak has now become a standard in this matchup, with four of the last three games being played.
The corresponding odds are 1.63, but given the current form of the South Tyrolean, who has raised his level once again since the ATP Finals, I wouldn’t want to commit to that. In the Turin duel against Medvedev, he only conceded two break points, which he easily fended off.
It usually takes a few break chances against Sinner to capitalize on them. Another of his strengths is his mentality, with the best shots and strokes often coming in pressure situations.
Karan Khachanov and Andrey Rublev, who were only able to capitalize on one in 18 chances, can tell you a thing or two about that. After six matches, Sinner has only lost two service games, Medvedev 23!
My Sinner Medvedev tip
Form, freshness, level of play, almost everything speaks for a Grand Slam triumph for the 22-year-old Sinner. Why only almost? In terms of experience, Medvedev has the edge, having reached the final of a major for the fifth time and already triumphed at the 2021 US Open.
But as I’ve already mentioned, Sinner is also known for his strong nerves and calmness in crucial situations. He won’t give Medvedev the numerous errors that he received from Zverev from the third set onwards.
Otherwise, the 1.98-meter man, who only played from a defensive position over almost the entire distance, would not even have made it to the final. When Zverev exerted pressure, he hardly won any points.
And Sinner will exert the same pressure with a significantly lower error rate and ensure a class difference on court right from the start with the help of much fresher legs. As he has only allowed 0.33 breaks per match so far, I even dare to predict a 3:0 success.
My Sinner Medvedev tip for the Australian Open final is therefore: Sinner wins in three sets!
