LONDON, July 12. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev failed to advance to the final of the 2024 Wimbledon after he lost to Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz on Friday in the semifinals of the prestigious Grand Slam event in London.
According to the tournament’s official website the match, which lasted for almost two hours and 55 minutes, saw the tournament’s 3rd-seed Spaniard to overcome Medvedev, who is playing at the tournament under a neutral status "with a 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win, bolstered by his 55 winners and six aces."
"I’m really happy about my performance today," the press office of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) quoted Alcaraz as saying on the court after his match against Medvedev.
"I started really nervously. He was dominating the match, playing great tennis with his serve and his return game," the Spanish player continued. "It was difficult for me but I tried to push out the nerves at the beginning of the second set."
"It was really helpful to be up 3-1 and after that I could play my own game and enjoy the match a little bit more. I tried to hit great shots, I moved well, so in general I think I played a pretty good match," the defending Wimbledon champion added.
Medvedev, 28, is currently fifth in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Rankings. In 2022, the top Russian racket spent sixteen weeks as the number one player in the world. He is the 2021 US Open Champion and has 20 ATP tournament titles under his belt. He won five of these 20 titles in 2023. Also, in 2021, he won the Davis Cup as well as the ATP Cup playing for the Russian national team.
Alcaraz, 21, is currently 3rd in the Association of Tennis Professionals Rankings and he already has 14 ATP titles under his belt in addition to winning two Grand Slam tournaments - the US Open in 2022 and the Wimbledon in 2023.
The Spanish tennis star is now set to face off in the final of the 2024 Wimbledon against the winner of another semifinal match between Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti and 2nd-seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia.
The Wimbledon tournament, the most prestigious out of the four Grand Slam tournaments, has been held annually in London since 1877. This year’s Wimbledon runs between July 1 and 14 and offers $63 million in prize money. Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic are the reigning Wimbledon champions in men’s and women’s singles respectively.
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 canceling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.
On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from 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.