MADRID, April 27. /TASS/. Russia’s Daniil Medvedev advanced to Round 4 of the 2026 ATP Madrid Open tournament in straight sets win defeating Nikolai Budkov Kjaer of Norway on Monday.

Medvedev, playing under no national flag at the tournament in Spain, outplayed his Spanish opponent Budkov Kjaer 6-3; 6-2. He is now set to play in the next round against the winner of the duel between Italy’s 10th-seed Flavio Cobolli and tournament’s qualifier form Paraguay Adolfo Daniel Vallejo.

Medvedev, 30, spent sixteen weeks as the world’s number one player in 2022. Currently, he’s the 10th-ranked player in the world. He previously won the 2021 US Open and is now a 23-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 Madrid Open is an ATP 1000 Masters tournament played on outdoor clay courts at the Park Manzanares in the Spanish capital between April 22 and May 3. It offers over $9.7 million in prize money. Norway’s Casper Ruud is the tournament’s reigning champion. Russian tennis players Marat Safin and Andrey Rublev won this tournament in 2004 and 2024 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 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 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.