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Medvedev won 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 to win his first match of
round-robin action. He smashed 15 aces to Hurkacz's 12, and the
Pole never pushed him to break point.
"I had zero break points to save, so in a way I was never under
pressure," Medvedev said in his on-court interview. "I had only
two games on Hubert's serve where I had break points. Super
happy to make this work and (that I) managed to get both
breaks."
Medvedev fell behind 6-2 in the first-set tiebreak but clawed
his way back to 6-5. Hurkacz finally put him away on his fourth
set point.
Early in the third set, Medvedev won a hard-fought point on a
29-shot rally.
"I remember this point because that's the only point in the
match where I could actually interact with the crowd a little
bit," Medvedev said. "Other than that, it was aces, winners and
unforced errors."
Also Sunday, No. 3 seed Alexander Zverev of Germany won his
first match of the finals when Italian No. 6 Matteo Berrettini
retired down 7-6 (7), 1-0.
Berrettini retired due to a left oblique injury. According to
the ATP, it is the first time a singles player retired in the
ATP Finals since Andre Agassi in 1998.
"I don't really know what to say, because this is the worst
feeling a player can have," Zverev said in his on-court
interview. "You play all year long to qualify for this beautiful
tournament. For Matteo playing at home, this is the worst
feeling I think he will ever have in his career."
The ATP Finals are the tour's season-ending championships and
pit the top eight singles players and doubles teams according to
the ATP rankings. In singles, players begin with a single
round-robin in two groups of four. The top two players in each
group advance to the knockout phase.
Medvedev and Zverev are in the red group and are now 1-0. The
green group will begin play Monday when top seed Novak Djokovic
of Serbia faces Norwegian eighth seed Casper Ruud and No. 4 seed
Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece takes on No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev
of Russia.
--Field Level Media
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