Top seed and defending champion Daniil Medvedev advanced to the quarterfinals at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna on Thursday after beating Grigor Dimitrov.
Medvedev was forced to dig deep for a 3-6 6-2 6-4 win over the experienced Dimitrov in front of a packed crowd at the Wiener Stadthalle on Austria’s National Day.
“It was a great match,” Medvedev said in his on-court interview. “He started very well and I missed a little too much. He was in front and from the second set I started to play better, run better, put more balls in the court and play faster when necessary.
“I had little control over the match, but it was very tough and it could have gone either way. I’m very happy I did it.”
Medvedev finished with 31 winners, including 14 aces, to improve to 6-2 in his eight meetings with Dimitrov.
Joining Medvedev in the season finale in Turin will be Andrei Rublevwho also booked his place in the quarter-finals by beating Matteo Arnaldi 7-5 6-3.
Rublev is the fifth player to earn his place in Turin from November 12 to 19, with Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Medvedev and Jannik Sinner all having qualified for the year-end championships.
“It feels great,” Rublev said. “It’s great news. After the race I didn’t know that if I won the race I would definitely qualify, so I didn’t know that and it’s a great feeling, great news. I’m looking forward to it and happy to still to be part of the Nitto ATP Finals for a year.”
There are only three singles spots left for the year-end championships. Former NATP Finals Champion Stefanos Tsitsipaswho is sixth in the ATP Live Race To Turin, is next in line to qualify and he got past Tomas Machac 6-3 4-6 7-5 in Vienna.
Swiss youth Dominic Stricker Second seed Casper Ruud upset 6-4 3-6 7-6 (7-1) to earn a place in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoors and Basel, denting the Norwegian’s ATP Finals hopes .
Alexander Shevchenko recorded his best win of his career when he saved two match points after two hours and 53 minutes to beat world number 9 Taylor Fritz 6-7 (7-9) 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5) to make an upset.