DUBAI, February 26. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev has cleared the quarterfinals stage of the 2026 Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday confidently defeating Jenson Brooksby of the United States.

In a match that lasted barely for an hour, the 3rd-seeded Medvedev, who is playing under a neutral status at the tournament, breezed past US unseeded player Brooksby in straight sets 6-2; 6-1.

"There were moments in my career when I was better prepared," the official ATP website cited Medvedev as saying after the match against Brooksby. "Funnily enough, they say ‘Rookies get lucky’. It was more this kind of thing. Everything was new, I didn’t care… I was just playing the way I felt."

"Now, I have a lot more thoughts in my head, which can help me sometimes, but sometimes I need to get rid of them to play better. I still know that I can be consistent," the Russian tennis player continued.

"For example, at the end of last year I was super consistent, and even this year I am trying to regain it. This tournament is great so far," Medvedev added.

In the tournament’s semifinals, Medvedev is set to face off against tournament’s top-seed Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, who defeated in the quarterfinals Jiri Lehcka of the Czech Republic 6-3; 7-6.

The Canadian tennis player, who has 0-7 head-to-head record against Medvedev between 2014 and 2024 said ahead of his semifinals match against the Russian: "We have very different game styles."

"I’m going to try to come forward, he will try and make me miss. We’ll see who gets the better of the game plan. He’s had the better of me… It took me seven or eight times before beating him," Auger-Aliassime added.

Medvedev, 30, spent sixteen weeks as the world’s number one player in 2022. Currently, he’s the 11th-ranked player in the world. He previously won the 2021 US Open and is a 22-time ATP champion. He won five of those 22 titles in 2023. Also, in 2021, he won the Davis Cup as well as the ATP Cup playing for the Russian national team.

The 2026 Dubai Tennis Championships is the ATP-500 event. It is played between February 23 and 28 on outdoor hard courts at the Aviation Club Tennis Centre in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and offers $3.3 million in prize money. Stefanos Tsitsipas from Greece is the tournament’s reigning champion.

 

Russian and Belarusian 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 moved to exclude 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 on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from participating in the 2022 Davis Cup and the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.