NEW YORK — No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner used an aggressive, attacking style to reach the U.S. Open semifinals for the first time, beating 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 on Wednesday night.
Sinner, a 23-year-old Italian who was cleared of a doping case less than a week before the U.S. Open began after testing positive twice for traces of an anabolic steroid in March, will face No. 25 Jack Draper of Britain on Friday for a place in the title match. Draper won the only match between the two, at Queen's Club in 2021.
Following the eliminations of Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz in the first week, Sinner became the title favourite and is now the only player left in the tournament with a Grand Slam trophy. He won his first Australian Open title in January by beating Medvedev in the final in five sets after losing the first two.
This matchup was unusually unstable, as they took turns dominating one set at a time.
First, Sinner was superior. Then Medvedev, who had been runner-up at Flushing Meadows last year to Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in 2019, played that role. Sinner regained the lead in the third set. In the fourth, at 3-3, Sinner rallied, saved a pair of break points and then broke Medvedev's serve to go 5-3 up.
“We know each other pretty well… We knew it was going to be a very physical match,” said Sinner, who lost to Medvedev in five sets at Wimbledon in July. “The first two sets were strange, because whoever got the first break started to win.”
The key: Sinner won the point on 28 of his 33 trips to the net, including 9 of 11 on serve-and-volley approaches.
“We've tried to work really hard on that aspect of the game,” Sinner said. “We're just trying to mix things up.”
Medvedev was particularly inconsistent. He had just one fewer winner than Sinner, but finished with 19 more unforced errors.
“Sometimes you feel like you're doing everything right and then you miss and you have question marks and so on,” Medvedev said. “Maybe today I was trying a little bit more risky shots, I was missing a little bit more. Like I said, at one point I got lost in my missed shots.”
Sinner is the third Italian to reach the US Open semi-finals since the Open era began in 1968, joining Corrado Barazzutti (1977) and Matteo Berrettini (2019). He also became the fourth-youngest man in the Open era to reach the semi-finals at all four majors, behind only Djokovic, Nadal and Jim Courier.
Medvedev fell to 9-2 in his career quarterfinals, the only other loss coming at the 2021 French Open to Stefanos Tsitsipas. His exit means there are no former US Open champions left in this year's draw.
Friday's other semifinal will be No. 12 Taylor Fritz against No. 20 Frances Tiafoe in the first all-American men's matchup at this stage of a major in 19 years.
Information from ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press was used in this report.
