The Final Stop

Both players have been quite dominant in their path to the final...

Medvedev being in the final is not that unexpected, since he was the favorite. Besides a dropped tiebreak set to Majchrzak, it have been dominant set scorelines, the ones we used to see in the past with Medvedev. While he struggled on faster courts in the last years (enter CLAYvedev era), his newly added aggression and net game seem to be paying off. His defense is outstanding, and now with some respectable offensive capability as well, it becomes a tough riddle to solve for his opponents. Nakashima has been able to win his matches here through his consistency as well as being the superior player in the pressure moments. Constantly finding first serves when needed, as well as making use of his improved return to find breaks more often than in the past.

Daniil has already disposed of two fellow young Americans (Michelsen and Tiafoe) with ease, dropping just 11 games in 4 sets. Those players have more "dynamic" games than Nakashima, which tends to be a good thing against Medvedev - beating him from the baseline is not that easy ;) However, as I mentioned, they had no success, even if Michelsen put up a decent fight in a scoreline that was a bit deceiving. What can Brandon do differently to make this final more competitive? Even though he has improved his all-around game, he still lacks options to disrupt Medvedev, since he is primarily a good ballstriker that plays without a lot of variation. Nakashima excels with shorter points and first-strike tennis; he can repeat "winning" patterns. However, he tends to struggle in the longer rallies, when he is not able to execute his shorter patterns, and especially when he has to defend. As you can tell, I'm not overly optimistic for Nakashima in this matchup, despite a very good week so far from him in Brisbane. Nakashima will need to have an outstanding service performance (which he is capable of) and remain solid/calm without trying to force too much, perhaps taking advantage of a few Medvedev double faults and "meltdowns" on court...