Daniil Medvedev continued his meteoric rise towards the Top 100 in Budapest on Friday, as he defeated former Top 10 star Tommy Robredo 7-5, 6-2 in the Budapest Challenger semi-finals.
The twenty-year old Russian started the year with a lowly ranking of .329, opening his season with a loss in a Challenger qualifying event against Jason Jung. Yet a stunning year for the 6’6 right-hander followed. Medvedev earned his first Challenger title in St Remy, France (def. De Loore). His season has also included Round of 16 runs in s-Hertogenbosch (def. Zeballos, l. to Mannarino), Hamburg, (def. Struff, l. to Gimeno-Traver) and St. Petersburg (def. Bublik, lost to A. Zverev). His crowning achievement however was qualifying for, and reaching the quater-finals, of the Moscow VTB Kremlin Cup (def. Kukushkin, def. Troicki, l. to Robert).
His run in Budapest, which has seem him knock out fellow young Russian Andrey Rublev, is now all the more impressive for knocking out a veteran in Robredo. Robredo, who had dropped sets to both Steven Diez and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, could not contain the big-serving Russian going out quickly in two sets.
Interestingly, Robredo has a poor record against players who have counted their serve as their biggest weapon. He is 1-17 in his career history against big-servers Ivo Karlovic, John Isner, and the retired Andy Roddick. An 0-11 record against Roddick makes for the bulk of the unenviable record.
Medvedev will face another tall player in Marius Copil, who has not dropped a set in defeating Marko Tepavac, eighth seed Vincent Millot, and Marton Fuscovics, en route to the semi-finals.
In th bottom half of the draw there was easy progress for Steve Darcis after Denis Istomin retired having lost the first set 6-2. Darcis will face Kenny de Schepper after he edged sixth seed Lukas Lacko 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.
Predictions : Medvedev to beat Copil in straight sets (one tie-break) and Darcis to beat de Scheppper in three sets.
