Daniil Medvedev has lost to the eventual champion in each of the past two US Opens.
Two years ago, the 25-year-old Russian was the tournament’s fifth seed when he lost to No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal in an epic five-set final, in which the two players battled for four hours and 49 minutes, five minutes shy of the longest US Open championship match ever contested.
Last year, Medvedev was seeded a couple of notches higher at No. 3. Yet his quest to capture his first Grand Slam title was again thwarted by a No. 2 seed, when Dominic Thiem captured tiebreaks in the second and third sets to come out on top in a tense, up-and-down semifinal.
This time around, Medvedev is the No. 2 seed, which bodes well for him. Not only has the man who is seeded second won the US Open title in each of the past two years, but the No. 2 seed has captured the championship 17 times in the 53 US Opens completed so far in the Open era—the same number of times the No. 1 seed has claimed the top prize.
Medvedev, who is 14-1 this summer on North American hard courts, has not lost a set through the first three rounds at the US Open. Next up for him in Arthur Ashe Stadium is Daniel Evans, the No. 24 seed, who is making his first appearance in the tournament’s fourth round and has taken a more difficult route than Medvedev to get to there. Should Medvedev get past Evans in their Sunday afternoon matchup and continue making his way through the bottom half of the draw, he would likely be on a collision course with Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 seed, who plays his fourth-round match against Jenson Brooksby on Monday.
If Medvedev and Djokovic both live up to their seeding and advance to the men’s final, it will mark the 14th time in the Open era that the men’s top two seeds have played for the championship. More often than not, it has been the No. 2 seed who has come out on top, winning seven of the two seeds' previous 13 meetings for the title.
Shortly before the 2021 US Open began, Medvedev met with the media and said, “I want to win the US Open. I don’t care if it’s in the final against a qualifier or against Novak. I just want to win this tournament.”
Historically speaking, Medvedev, playing at the 2021 US Open as the No. 2 seed, he is in excellent position to make that happen.
