(Football news) Although second seed Alcaraz defeated Andrey Rublev on Wednesday to record his first-ever tournament victory, he now finds himself outside the top two going into the final round of round-robin matches.

Alcaraz faced Rublev for the first time in an attempt to salvage his dreams of winning the ATP Finals after losing to Novak Djokovic for the year-end world number one ranking. Alcaraz had lost to Alexander Zverev’s dominance in the first matchday.

Alcaraz focused on the game and often exploited the court’s corners to win 7-5 6-2 in less than 75 minutes while Rublev generally found it difficult to control his emotions. At one point, he even drew blood from his knee after hitting himself with his racket.

It was total dominance from start to finish for the Spaniard, whose maiden ATP Finals victory has him in with a fighting chance of semi-finals qualification. Remarkably, he lost just two points on his first serve throughout the entire match and did not allow Rublev to fashion a single break opportunity.

Now, Alcaraz, Rublev, and Zverev are all fighting for a single position in the final four. Although the Spaniard is now in third place behind Zverev due to his loss to the German, a win over Medvedev will ensure him a spot in the semifinals should Zverev lose to Rublev.

While a loss would not be the end all for the 20-year-old, he would need Rublev to defeat Zverev and hope that his win rate in games and sets ends up being higher than both players’. On Friday, an undefeated Medvedev need not worry about such outcomes.

In addition to continuing his winning streak on hard courts and meeting Zverev for the eighteenth time on the ATP Tour, Medvedev also became the first player to qualify for the 2023 semifinals with some style. He had already defeated Rublev in a commanding manner.

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the Russian in the opening set, as Zverev gained the first break of the match before leading 4-1 in the first-set tie-breaker. Medvedev overcame this set by sitting far behind the baseline and waiting for the best moment to strike. After winning 7-6[7] 6-4.

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