Wu Yibing is finding his footing on clay. After earning his first tour-level win on the surface in Rome, he earned another on Monday in Geneva.

The Chinese star saved one match point en route to a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(6) victory against home favourite Marc-Andrea Hustler in the first round of the Gonet Geneva Open.

“[He is] a very tough opponent to play against. It’s the first time we played each other and of course he is from here, there’s more people cheering for him,” Wu said in his on-court interview. “But I’m glad I [pulled] through these ups and downs, especially the first few games in the second set. I made like 10 double faults in a row, which shouldn’t happen. [I will] try to be better next time.”

Wu, who hit seven double faults in the match, found his best when it mattered most. Huesler earned match point at 6/5 in the final-set tie-break, but Wu played aggressively and finished off the point at the net with an overhead.

“I’m very happy,” said Wu, who will next play 2018 Roland Garros semi-finalist Marco Cecchinato. “It’s my first time here playing Geneva, first time for me here in Switzerland and it’s a beautiful country. First few days I practised and I tried to visit the city a little bit. You guys have amazing watches and chocolate!”

In other action, former finalist Nicolas Jarry continued his love affair with the Geneva ATP 250 event. The Chilean, who lost against Alexander Zverev in the title match in 2019, defeated Banja Luka champion Dusan Lajovic 6-4, 6-2 to reach the second round.

Jarry, currently No. 52 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, reached the semi-finals on clay in Rio de Janeiro in February before he lifted the title in Santiago in March. He will next play Italian qualifier Stefano Travaglia or Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor.

Eighth seed Adrian Mannarino defeated Serbian Filip Krajinovic 7-5, 6-1 to advance to the second round in Geneva for the second time. The 34-year-old snapped a four-match losing streak with his 13th tour-level win of the season. Mannarino will next meet Guido Pella or Ilya Ivashka.

Spaniards Bernabe Zapata Miralles and Roberto Carballes Baena also advanced. Zapata Miralles downed Ukrainian qualifier Vitaliy Sachko 6-2, 6-4, while Carballes Baena beat countryman Daniel Rincon 6-4, 4-6, 6-0. Rincon was making his second tour-level appearance after coming through qualifying.

The third and final clay-court ATP Masters 1000 event of the season saw Daniil Medvedev lift the title at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, while several Top 100 stars enjoyed deep runs.

ATPTour.com looks at the movers of the week in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings as of Monday, 22 May 2023.

View Pepperstone ATP Rankings

No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, +1 (Joint Career-High)
The Spaniard has returned to top spot once again following his exploits on the clay in Madrid and Rome. The 20-year-old lifted his fourth ATP Masters 1000 title in Madrid and returned to No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings after playing his opening match in Rome, where he reached the third round.

No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, +1
The 27-year-old has climbed to No. 2 after he won his maiden clay-court title in Rome. Medvedev dropped just one set en route to his sixth ATP Masters 1000 crown, defeating Holger Rune in the final. Medvedev has captured five titles this season and earned a Tour-leading 39 wins.

No. 6 Holger Rune, +1 (Career High)
The Dane has moved to a career-high No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings after he advanced to his third ATP Masters 1000 final. The 2022 Paris champion, who reached the title match in Monte-Carlo last month, defeated Top 5 stars Novak Djokovic and Casper Ruud in Rome. He will head to Roland Garros 13-3 on the clay-court season.

Other Notable Top 100 Movers
No. 13 Hubert Hurkacz, +2
No. 26 Jan-Lennard Struff, +2 (Career High)
No. 28 Francisco Cerundolo, +3
No. 38 Ugo Humbert, +12
No. 46 Tomas Martin Etcheverry, +15 (Career High)
No. 55 Gregoire Barrere, +8 (Career High)
No. 64 Yannick Hanfmann, +37 (Career High)
No. 67 Max Purcell, +20 (Career High)
No. 73 Marco Cecchinato, +10
No. 75 Christopher Eubanks, + 11 (Career High)
No. 76 Nuno Borges, +12
No. 78 Arthur Rinderknech, +11
No. 79 Luca Van Assche, +6 (Career High)
No. 80 Marton Fucsovics, +12
No. 84 Alexander Shevchenko, +9 (Career High)
No. 96 Aleksandar Vukic, +32 (Career High)

Brandon Nakashima earned his first tour-level win since March on Monday when he moved past Argentine Diego Schwartzman 7-5, 6-3 to reach the second round at the Open Parc Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Lyon.

The 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals champion has struggled to find his best form this season, falling in the first or second round at all six previous events he has played this year. The eighth-seeded American looked sharp on the clay in Lyon, though, striking his groundstrokes with aggression to advance after two hours and two minutes on tournament debut.

After earning his fourth win of the season, Nakashima will next face Arthur Rinderknech after the Frenchman defeated South African qualifier Lloyd Harris 6-4, 6-2.

#NextGenATP Frenchman Arthur Fils defeated China’s Zhizhen Zhang 6-3, 6-2 to continue his impressive season.

The 18-year-old had not earned a tour-level win before this year, but his 74-minute victory against Zhang was his seventh win of the season at this level, with the teen overpowering the World No. 70.

Earlier this year, Fils reached semi-finals in Montpellier and Marseille, before he came through qualifying to advance to the second round in Rome. The 18-year-old, who is currently fifth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Next Gen Race, will next play Mikael Ymer or Richard Gasquet.

In other action, fifth seed Miomir Kecmanovic snapped a three-match losing streak when he defeated Spanish lucky loser Oriol Roca Batalla 6-1, 6-3. The Serbian won 83 per cent (20/24) of his first-serve points and did not face a break point to triumph after 74 minutes.

Kecmanovic will next meet Briton Jack Draper. Kecmanovic is chasing his first title of the season this week, having advanced to finals in Delray Beach and Estoril earlier this year.

Daniil Medvedev leaves Rome with a healthy lead in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin after claiming his first clay-court title on the ATP Tour.

The 27-year-old, who passed Carlos Alcaraz in the Live Race when he reached the Internazionali BNL d’Italia quarter-finals, now leads the 20-year-old Spaniard by 845 points. Medvedev is 1,555 points ahead of third-placed Novak Djokovic.

Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin (after Rome)

The Rome champion has made an early statement in the battle for year-end ATP No. 1 presented by Pepperstone, which he is trying to claim for the first time. Medvedev ascended to World No. 1 last year, but he has not yet claimed year-end No. 1 honours.

Alcaraz became the youngest year-end No. 1 last year aged 19. Now 20, he is once again in the heat of the battle, as is Djokovic, who holds the record of year-end No. 1 finishes with seven.

Of the Top 8 players in the Live Race, six of them competed in last year’s Nitto ATP Finals. Fourth-placed Stefanos Tsitsipas, sixth-placed Andrey Rublev and eighth-placed Taylor Fritz played at the Pala Alpitour last November.

Fifth-placed Jannik Sinner competed in the season finale as an alternate in 2021 and seventh-placed Holger Rune was an alternate last year. Rune climbed two places during the season’s final clay-court Masters 1000 event by advancing to the final. The 20-year-old is trying to earn his place in the Nitto ATP Finals for the first time.

There are four players within 595 points of Fritz, who currently holds the final qualifying spot for the year-end championships. Those players are Karen Khachanov, Cameron Norrie, Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe. From that group, only Norrie has previously played a match at the season finale.

Casper Ruud, who reached the championship match in Turin last year, surged nine places to 15th in the Live Race by advancing to the Rome semi-finals. The Norwegian is trying to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals for the third consecutive year.

Plenty can change in the coming weeks, with ATP 250 events this week in Geneva and Lyon ahead of Roland Garros, where one player will earn 2,000 points. This year’s season finale will be held from 12-19 November in Turin at the Pala Alpitour.

Daniil Medvedev dismantles your game.

Playing your “A-Game” is next to impossible against Medvedev, who willingly absorbs your best punches and silently disrupts your winning patterns. Medvedev defeated Holger Rune 7-5, 7-5 in the Internazionali BNL d’Italia final on Sunday by dismantling Rune’s strengths and finding another level at the end of both sets to secure victory. There were seven specific battles in which Medvedev managed to craft an advantage over Rune to capture his first clay-court title.

1) Medvedev Owned Ad-Court Rallies
Medvedev’s primary baseline tactic was to make the match a backhand-to-backhand war of attrition through the Ad court. Medvedev’s ultra-flat, uber-consistent backhand is almost impossible to do anything with.

Medvedev Backhand Placement

• 67% cross court
• 15% middle
• 18% down the line

Rune Backhand Placement

• 46% cross court
• 25% middle
• 29% down the line

Medvedev shoveled two out of every three backhands crosscourt, handcuffing Rune in baseline exchanges. Overall, Rune hit 108 backhand groundstrokes, which included 14 errors and three winners. Rune also hit 54 run-around forehands in the Ad court for six winners and six errors. The Ad court belonged to Medvedev.

2) Rune’s Underperforming First Serve

Rune made a lowly 49 per cent of his first serves (33/68) for the match, only winning 52 per cent (17/33) of those points. Rune was broken four times, specifically due to these underperforming first-serve stats, but won a competitive 63 per cent (22/35) of his second-serve points. A key factor of Rune’s low numbers behind his first serve was Medvedev’s deep return position, where he regularly made contact six metres behind the baseline. Rune could not go through him, or around him.

Medvedev Return Hit Points vs. Rune

^{Hawkeye graphic courtesy of ATP Media}
Medvedev consistently put Rune on the back foot at the baseline after a first serve, or landed it at his shoelaces as he attempted to serve and volley. Medvedev directed 81 per cent of his first-and-second-serve returns to the middle and backhand thirds of the court, trying to immediately enter into an oxygen-depraving backhand-to-backhand rally against Rune.

3) Rune Serve & Volley
Serve and volley is a natural counter-attack against a deep returner, but with Rune landing less than half his first serves, the tactic always felt dangerous in this match. Overall, Rune won seven of twelve serve-and-volley points, but was even in the second set with three won and three lost. Medvedev did a masterful job of mitigating this potentially damaging tactic.

4) Rune Drop Shots
Drop shots are a classic secondary tactic on clay that compliment a strong primary pattern of play, such as initially pushing your opponent deep behind the baseline before yanking them forward. Rune hit 10 drop shots in the match, with eight coming from his backhand wing. He only won four of ten, and they failed to disrupt Medvedev’s baseline patterns.

5) Net Points Won
Rune came to the net a healthy 26 times in the match but only managed to win 50 per cent (13) of those points. Medvedev countered by winning 13 of 20 (65 per cent) at net, providing another strategic victory.

6) Baseline Points Won
The primary pattern of play of blasting groundstrokes back and forth over the Roman red dirt was easily won by Medvedev.

• Medvedev=53% (39/74)
• Rune=43% (29/68)

Rune hit 131 forehand groundstrokes for the match, but Medvedev absorbed the punches like a true clay-court heavyweight. Rune struck nine winners with his forehand but contributed 17 errors as Medvedev consistently absorbed and repelled Rune’s forehands.

7) Court Position

Medvedev Court Position

• Inside Baseline=23%
• Within 2 Metres Of The Baseline=44%
• Past 2 Metres=33%

Rune Court Position

• Inside Baseline=21%
• Within 2 Metres Of The Baseline=45%
• Past 2 Metres=34%

Surprisingly, Medvedev played slightly more inside the baseline than Rune while at the same time not standing in the ultra-deep baseline location quite as much.

Medvedev’s first clay-court title came from playing solid tennis on his side of the net and forcing Rune to play his “B-Game”. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Andy Murray has withdrawn from Roland Garros.

The former World No. 1 competed on clay this season, but will not play in the clay-court major. He has taken part in the tournament once since 2017 (in 2020).

Murray owns an 8-8 tour-level record in 2023. He won his first title of any kind since 2019 earlier this month at the Aix-en-Provence ATP Challenger Tour 175 event, where he defeated then-World No. 17 Tommy Paul in the final.

The Scot lost in the first round in Monte-Carlo, Madrid and Rome. He also fell to former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka at an ATP Challenger Tour 175 event this week in Bordeaux.

Murray has tallied a 39-11 record at Roland Garros, where he reached the final in 2016 and the semi-finals in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2017.

The draw for the tournament will be made on Thursday at 2 p.m. local time.

Daniil Medvedev has always been open about his testy relationship with clay. So how did he rise to become an ATP Masters 1000 champion on the surface?

The 27-year-old had not won a match in three previous appearances at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, but he capped a dream run Sunday by defeating Holger Rune to triumph in Rome.

It was Medvedev’s first ATP Tour title on clay at any level, let alone at a Masters 1000. Even given his solid form on European clay courts prior to Rome, the former World No. 1 expressed some disbelief at his title run in Italy and admitted the unexpected nature of his triumph made it one of his best yet.

“In a way [this is my] number one [success], just because it’s the first one on clay and it’s unbelievable,” said Medvedev in his post-match press conference. “I would never have thought I would be able to make this. Then [I] have to be honest, a Grand Slam is always bigger. [The 2021] US Open is always number one there.

“This one is special because I didn’t think it was going to be able to happen, [that I was] going to be able to make it. I still kind of don’t believe… Not that I won it, but I played so well this week. I don’t believe it.

“The way I played, I’m really happy. Happy to have this trophy back home in some time.”

Medvedev’s deep groundstrokes have been a key feature of his clay-court development. His baseline retrieving has been the basis for his hard-court success (18 of his 20 tour-level titles have come on the surface), and he cited a change of strings at the start of the 2023 season as a reason why he has been able to replicate his form on the clay this year.

“Straightaway in Australia [with the new strings] actually, where I lost, with my coach we were like, ‘Wow, I have the easy depth on the ball, which is amazing,” said Medvedev.

“In Australia, [it] didn’t work. I was 100 per cent doubting myself. Should I go back to the old ones, I was playing good with them? I said no, let’s try more. Now it’s unbelievable.”

Medvedev’s title run was his fifth of a standout 2023 season, including Masters 1000 crowns in Miami and Rome. The 20-time tour-level titlist believes his experience playing under championship-match pressure at Masters 1000 events helped him keep his cool at tough moments against Rune.

“For sure every time you play a big final, it’s an experience,” said Medvedev. “It’s an experience for the next one. For example, both Miami and here, I felt like the start was so-so, then I managed to get into the match more and more and play better and better.

“When I played my first [ATP Masters 1000 final, in Montreal in 2019], it was against Rafa [Nadal]. I got destroyed. I started bad, as I kind of started these matches, then I was only playing worse and worse. The next one I managed to win against Goffin [in Cincinnati in 2019]. It was a tight match from both of us. We knew it’s going to be first one for us.

“With experience, I managed to do better in this moment, so maybe that helped. But then in general terms, after Miami, I was feeling confident, good.”