Three match points, three answers
Medvedev was serving at 5-4, 40-0 in the second set. Three match points. Brandon Nakashima won the next five points.
That single game turned the night. The 27th seed came through 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 in two hours and 52 minutes at the Cincinnati Open, removing the fourth seed in the third round of the last Masters 1000 before the US Open.
“Down match points, I was just trying to tell myself to keep fighting for every point,” Nakashima said in his on-court interview. “If he’s able to close it out there, then too good. I just kept fighting and managed to get it to a third set. I’m super happy with the level in the third.”
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A head-to-head he could not shift
The American had lost his first three meetings with Medvedev and taken one set in six along the way. The most recent came in January, in the Brisbane final, where the Russian again had the last word.
Nakashima led 5-2 in the opening set here and watched Medvedev save four set points before taking the tie-break 7-3. Twelve months ago that sequence would probably have finished him. Instead he stayed in it, edged the second-set breaker, and then took the decider for the loss of a single game.
Ten wins in twelve on the summer swing
He arrived in Ohio off semi-finals in Washington and Montreal, and this result moved him to 10-2 on the North American hard courts. The world No. 22 next meets Nuno Borges, who had earlier removed Russian 13th seed Andrey Rublev 6-3, 6-4. Two top-15 Russians gone on the same day, two weeks out from Flushing Meadows.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime, sixth seed Taylor Fritz and 10th seed Lorenzo Musetti all came through in straight sets. Australia’s Adam Walton went out 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3) to Jaime Faria after losing the last four points of the deciding tie-break. The day closed with Frances Tiafoe edging Learner Lien 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in an all-American meeting of the 16th and 17th seeds, sending Tiafoe into a last-16 tie with Auger-Aliassime.
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