Medvedev Back To Winning Ways In St. Petersburg

Russian Daniil Medvedev avoided any post-US Open slump on Thursday with a convincing 7-5, 6-3 win against countryman Evgeny Donskoy at the St. Petersburg Open.

Medvedev, playing his first match since pushing Rafael Nadal to five sets in the US Open final on 8 September, won 45 per cent of his return points to improve to 2-0 against the 29-year-old Donskoy in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series.

The top-seeded Russian won 20 of his 23 matches during the North American hard-court swing, making four consecutive finals in Washington, D.C., Montreal, Cincinnati and New York. He reached his first major final in Flushing Meadows, and in the process, qualified for his debut Nitto ATP Finals. The season-ending championships will be held 10-17 November at The O2 in London.

In St. Petersburg, Medvedev will meet the winner of fifth-seeded countryman Andrey Rublev and Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania for a place in the semi-finals at the ATP 250 event.