What an afternoon of Tennis it has been at Rod Laver Arena between 26-year-old unknown challenger from Portugal Nuno Borges and seasoned Grand slam specialist Daniil Medvedev. Medvedev fired off well as always while Borges emerged from the set down to give his opponent some challenging times along the way. But there can only be one winner and that belongs to Medvedev who responded to Borges’s fight back with a quick finish to the match for the win after just over three hours of play. The final score was 6-3, 7-6 with 6-4 tiebreaker, 5-7 & 6-1 as he awaits he will take on Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz who defeated Frenchman Arthur Cazaux in a close straight sets match at 6-7 with 6-8 tiebreak, 6-7 with 3-7 tiebreak and 4-6.
It’s been a great run with some excellent effort from the Portuguese to push Medvedev to the limit after denying him a straight sets path at the first attempt. If he can replicate that form from the beginning, Borges would’ve been in a fair chance towards an outside win & possibly bring his country a rare chance to cheer him on in the Quarter-Finals. But all good things have come to an end having knocked out two Top 15-25 seeders prior to today (Alejandro Davidovich Fokina & Grigor Dimitrov) where Borges was so far behind for the majority as seen with him tiring fast after back-to-back long spells (2nd & 3rd sets) on the court. We wish him all the best to kick on throughout 2024. And Medvedev has been brilliant all along with an easy start followed by a couple of setbacks before he quickly sprinted towards the finish line for the win on what is going to be his 3rd AO finals appearance. Enduring tough challenges is something he will be keen to test himself going forward like Borges did to him for a while in the hope of doing better later this week. He hasn’t had a great 1st half of last year but did so close though during the 2nd half of the grand slam season as another grand slam title would be great to add into his trophy cabinet & he hasn’t done it since the 2021 US Open.
