By Steve Keating
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After two late-night matches at Flushing Meadows third seed Daniil Medvedev finally finished work ‘early’ on Monday by taming Australian Alex de Minaur 2-6 6-4 6-1 6-2 to move into the U.S. Open quarter-finals for the fourth time in five years.
Medvedev has been working the graveyard shift at the U.S. Open, with his previous two matches starting one day and ending early the next, but after a sluggish start he stepped into high gear to speed past 13th seeded De Minaur.
Medvedev, the 2021 champion, led their head-to-head meetings 4-2 coming into the match but the Australian had won their last two contests, including a straight sets quarter-final win at the Canadian Open tune-up event.
De Minaur looked like he might make it three straight after taking the opening set on Louis Armstrong before Medvedev found his comfort zone.
Finally starting to dictate play, the Russian broke to win the second set and stepped up the pressure in the third to move in front before calmly closing out a comfortable win.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in New York. Editing by Peter Rutherford)
