MOSCOW, October 3. /TASS/. /TASS/. Russia’s top-ranked tennis player Daniil Medvedev has advanced to the final of the 2023 China Open tennis tournament after defeating Germany’s Alexander Zverev in straight sets 6-4; 6-3 on Tuesday.

"It's an amazing, strong field so it's great to be in the final against one of the amazing Sinner or Alcaraz," the official website of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) quoted Medvedev as saying after the match.

"I'm really happy with my level. Roof closed, different conditions today, much faster," Medvedev, who is playing at the world tennis tournaments under a neutral status, continued.

"Both of us are big servers so it came down to just a few opportunities and I managed to serve better when I had break points to save than he did," he added.

The second-seeded Medvedev is now set to face off in the final against the winner of the other semifinal match pitting Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz against Jannik Sinner of Italy.

Medvedev, 27, is currently third in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Rankings List. In 2022, the top Russian racket 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 just this year. Also, in 2021, he won the Davis Cup as well as the ATP Cup playing for the Russian national team.

The 2023 China Open is an outdoor, hard-court tournament, part of the ATP 500. It is being played in Beijing between September 28 and October 4 with a purse of $3.6 million in prize money up for grabs. The tournament is taking place for the first time since 2019 as it had been canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic due to anti-coronavirus restrictions. In 2019, Dominic Thiem won the championship trophy.

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.