New York: Daniil Medvedev barely broke a sweat as he brushed aside unseeded Nuno Borges 6-0 6-1 6-3 to advance to the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open with an utterly dominant display at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday.
Fifth seed Medvedev is the only former champion left in the men's draw and the clash was a one-sided contest where Borges, playing in a Grand Slam fourth round for only the second time in his career, had no answers to the Russian's power.
The manner of the victory was a far cry from the same stage at the Australian Open where Borges managed to take a set off Medvedev but here he made 10 double faults and 51 unforced errors.
"To be honest, he played worse (than in Melbourne)," Medvedev told reporters. "Even by the stats he made a lot of unforced errors, a lot of double faults. Everyone is doing double faults here, probably something to do with condition of the balls.
"Especially in some games, it was maybe two or three so this gives you an easy break. I managed again to serve much better than the days before, so I didn't give him this opportunity to break back. It's a little bit of extra pressure."
Medvedev, the 2021 champion, whitewashed Borges in the opening set, toying with the Portuguese who was no match for the towering Russian's powerful baseline returns and his movement at the net.
Medvedev lost only 11 points in the opening set but Borges finally got on the board in the second set, earning a round of applause as he went 1-0 up.
But the rest of the set was more of the same as Borges made several unforced errors and Medvedev took a two-set lead.
The crowd did get behind Borges, who briefly flipped the script and took the lead in the third set.
But a fire alarm led to a brief pause in play which gave the Russian time to recover and he won five of the next six games to wrap up the contest.
"Strange experience but it did help me because the next two points I felt like he started to get the momentum and this broke it a little bit," Medvedev said.
The Russian will next play either top seed Jannik Sinner, who beat him in the Australian Open final before he exacted revenge at Wimbledon, or American Tommy Paul.
"I will try to think more about Wimbledon than the Australian Open," Medvedev said with a smile.
"If it's him who wins against Tommy, hopefully we can have a great match. I know if I want to beat him, I need to be at my best."
Published 03 September 2024, 01:38 IST