NEW YORK, September 1. /TASS/. Russia’s top tennis player Daniil Medvedev advanced to Round 3 of the US Open tennis tournament, which kicked off in New York on August 28, where he will meet Argentina’s Sebastian Baez.

Late Thursday night, the 4th-seeded Medvedev outplayed Australia’s Christopher O'Connell 6-2; 6-2; 6-7 (6-8); 6-2 in Round 2 of the prestigious Grand Slam tournament.

"Tough match. I don’t know why, but at one moment in the match he decided to play better," the official website of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) quoted Medvedev as saying after his win over O'Connell.

"I played the same from the first point to the last," Medvedev continued. "It became much tougher for me, so I’m happy that I was able to still hang in there. I had opportunities in the third set, and I managed to use them in the fourth."

Speaking about his third set play against the Australian, Medvedev said: "When you get frustrated, you never know."

"You could lose your concentration and the match could become much tougher, or like today, I felt like maybe it helped me a little bit. In general, I felt like it was a great match to play, honestly," the Russian tennis player added.

Earlier on Thursday night, the unseeded Baez, 22, defeated Brazil’s Felipe Meligeni Alves. With the score standing at 7-6 (9-7); 4-6; 4-6; 0-0, the 25-year-old Brazilian decided to retire from the match.

Medvedev, 27, is currently third in the ATP Rankings List. In 2022, the Russian was the number one ranked tennis player in the world for 16 weeks. He is the 2021 US Open Champion and has 20 ATP tournament titles under his belt. He has won five of those 20 titles this year. Also, in 2021, he won the Davis Cup as well as the ATP Cup playing for the Russian national team.

The 2023 US Open is being held on outdoor hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York between August 28 and September 10. The tournament has $65 million in prize money up for grabs. Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Poland’s Iga Swiatek are the tournament's defending champions in men’s and women's singles, respectively.

Tennis players from Russia and Belarus are participating at this year's Open under a neutral status due to the current sanctions regime.

Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also cancelling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.

On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from taking part in the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.

However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.