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Daniil Medvedev declared it to be the best start to a year that he has had in his career. It really has been remarkable was he has achieved over the months of February and March, and he capped it off by winning the Miami Open for the first time from his first time in the final.
Medvedev took one hour 34 minutes to defeat Jannik Sinner, who has also had a great time in recent weeks with results, 7-5, 6-3. Incredibly that was the sixth time they have met, including twice this year, and Medvedev has come away the winner each time.
"Really happy," Medvedev said. "It's the best start of the season I have ever had. Amazing amount of points won. For sure a pity there was no Grand Slam at this period of time, but yeah, generally super happy and looking forward to the season even more."
The Russian was playing his fifth consecutive final and won his fourth title. In 1981 the great Ivan Lendl reached five consecutive finals - Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic have not reached five consecutive finals in the various win streaks they have enjoyed. He won in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai and lost the Indian Wells final before Miami and he has won 24 of 25 matches.
"Generally, I love hard courts," Medvedev said. "I love playing on it. Yeah, if it would be my choice, it would be only hard courts, but I completely understand that that's not fair, if we can say like this. So, yeah, I feel the best at my game on hard courts. Even if I know that I can play well enough on the grass and clay, on hard courts I feel the most fluid. On hard courts I can play not my best tennis but still win the matches. That's a big difference."
Going into the final, Sinner who won a glorious and gripping semi final over Carlos Alcaraz, probably the best men's best of three set match so far this year, was not feeling well. He said he felt a bit sick and during the final he was attended to by the physio and doctor. He said he never considered not playing and was not making any excuses. He made it clear that Daniil was too good.
"Yeah, for sure. I mean, it has been a very positive month for me," Sinner said. "Obviously disappointed about today. I woke up not in the best possible way. I felt a little bit sick, but we tried, you know, to go out of the courts, I mean, to go on the court, trying to give it a shot, give it a try.
"Unfortunately, today was not my day. But still, I don't want to take nothing away from Daniil. He was serving incredible. He was very brave with the way he played today. Obviously is one of the best players in the world. I tried. Today was not my day. Now it's clay season."
He tried to be quite aggressive on the second serves but Medvedev was sort of expecting that. Sinner was missing some returns and in the second set he tried to adapt himself to the situation by trying to step back a little bit like when I broke him. The court conditions were not easy for either player because there was a shadow that was cutting the court in half - one part in shade the other in sun.
"Somehow my shots don't let him, and I don't do it on purpose, it's not like before the match I'm like, Okay, I'm going to do exactly this shot to put him in trouble, but I can see throughout all the matches that we played that my shots don't let him completely, what's the word, like expose his game, which is hitting winners all over the place," Medvedev said.
"Like the match against Carlos, the match against Rublev, Ruusuvuori, he was just blasting the ball past his opponents, doing unbelievable winners. Somehow my ball doesn't let him do it, or maybe I'm reading his game a little bit better, so I'm pushing him more to the error.
"I feel like already this year he's stepping up, stepping up, so he starts to miss less and less. The match in Rotterdam was a brutal one. I mean, today the first set he had the first break. He's getting definitely closer and closer, but I hope I can continue bringing him this trouble because I'm sure I'm going to see him in the later stages of the tournament if I manage to play well."
The doubles title went to Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Santiago Gonzalez, they defeated Nicolas Mahut and Austin Krajicek 7-6, 7-5.
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