Russian world tennis number one Daniil Medvedev suffered his second back-to-back grass court final defeat on Sunday when beaten in two sets by Hubert Hurkacz at the Halle Open.
Hurkacz produced what has been dubbed one of the best performances of the grass season so far by dismantling the game’s top player 6-1, 6-4 to secure his first tour-level competition on grass and his maiden tournament win of 2022.
Seeded fifth, the Pole broke Medvedev three times and finished him off in just 63 minutes at the OWL arena to clinch his fifth ATP tour trophy.
As Medvedev was losing his grip on the first set, a court invader attempted to tie himself to the net as seen recently at the French Open but was rumbled by security.
Chased away for an instance, the man then tried again at the other side of the court but was manhandled by two guards before struggling and eventually being wrestled to the ground.
Hurkacz became just the seventh player in Open Era history to win their first five finals, with world number seven and rising star Carlos Alcaraz also forming part of the small and exclusive group.
As for his record against Medvedev, Hurkacz now leads the Russian 3-2 after knocking him out of the quarter-finals of the Miami Open back in March.
“Daniil is an unbelievable player,” said Hurkacz in his post-match interview. “He’s the best player in the world so it’s very tricky to play him. All the right shots went my way at the beginning, so I definitely gained a lot of momentum from that.”
READ MORE: Champion Medvedev reacts to US Open clearanceUnable to play Wimbledon in eight days due to its ban on Russian players made as a response to the military operation in Ukraine, Medvedev now moves on to the Mallorca Open in Spain where he is still yet to learn who his round of 16 opponent is on Wednesday.
Being a good sport, he congratulated Hurkacz and his team for their win and said they were “super nice” while wishing them “a lot more matches to play on the biggest stage”.
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