Medjedovic Earns Win Of His Life, Reaches Marseille Final

Hamad Medjedovic, Open 13 Marseille
Hamad Medjedovic (photo: Open 13 Provence/Corinne Dubreuil)

MARSEILLE/WASHINGTON, February 15, 2025 (by Michael Dickens)

Hamad Medjedovic achieved his first Top-10 victory – the biggest win of his young career – and with his 6-3, 6-2 victory over World No. 8 Daniil Medvedev Saturday evening, the 21-year-old has become the first Serbian to reach the final of the Open 13 Provence in Marseille.

Inside the Palais des Sports de Marseille, the 2023 Next Gen ATP Finals champion came ready to play against the top-seeded Medvedev. He played aggressive tennis, broke the Russian a total of five times in 10 attempts and finished the one-hour, 12-minute semifinal with 18 winners – including seven aces. His sixth ace consolidated his fifth break of Medvedev’s serve and pinned the 2021 Marseille titlist in a corner that he was unable to overcome.

Competing in just his fourth ATP Tour semifinal after Gstaad and Astana in 2023 and Belgrade last year, the 96th-ranked Medjedovic lifted his ranking to No. 72 with the victory over Medvedev.

When Medjedovic served out the match, finishing with a flurry as he fired his seventh ace up the middle on his second match-point opportunity, the young Serbian shook hands with Medvedev at the net. Then, he turned to the crowd and broke out a big, happy smile and a roar of joy and satisfaction.

Medjedovic outplayed the 29-year-old Medvedev in all facets during the semifinal. He finished with 18 winners – seven of them aces – to go with 18 unforced errors. Medvedev countered with just 10 winners and made 22 unforced errors. Medjedovic converted five of 10 break points, saved three of five break points from Medvedev and outpointed him 62-44.

“I knew his returns were amazing but I was trying to stay close to him today,” Medjedovic said in his on-court interview. “I think I played one of my best matches this week. I’m really happy. I delivered on my tactics – a great performance – and I’m happy to be through [to the final].”

Medjedovic acknowledged the Marseille crowd for supporting him against Medvedev. “Not only today but during the whole week, they’ve been supporting me really nicely,” he said. “I’m really happy for that. Tomorrow in the final, I realize I’m not going to be the home favorite, but I hope you’re going to support me as well.”

Humbert seventh player to reach back-to-back Marseille finals

Medjedovic will face defending champion this year’s second seed Ugo Humbert of France. The World No. 17 from Metz defeated No. 62 Zizou Bergs of Belgium, 6-4, 6-4, in an hour and 30 minutes.

In the first semifinal, Humbert became the seventh player in tournament history to reach back-to-back Marseille finals. He improved to 17-1 in his last 18 matches played indoors in France, which includes winning titles at Metz in 2023 and Marseille last year – and advancing to his first ATP Masters 1000 final in Paris last November.

In collecting his eighth victory of the season and 12th career triumph in Marseille, the French No. 1 is through to his ninth ATP Tour final overall – including his fifth indoors – and remains alive to win his seventh career tour-level title.

Ahead 5-4, Humbert broke Bergs on his second opportunity of the game – and fourth of the set – to close out the 45-minute opening set. The Belgian No. 2 shanked a fifth-shot forehand wide left for his 14th unforced error of the match. Then, after holding serve to lead 5-4 in the second set, Humbert converted his second break point and won the semifinal on his second match-point opportunity after Bergs netted a third-shot forehand.

“He had a final in Auckland, so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Humbert said of Bergs during his on-court interview after improving to 8-2 and reaching his first final of the season. “He has an aggressive game, a big serve. I’m happy about my result today. Everything wasn’t perfect, but I’m happy to be back in the final in Marseille.”

Humbert finished with 10 winners to overcome 25 unforced errors, compared to 16 winners and 28 unforced errors for Bergs. He won 83 percent of his first-serve points, converted two of six break points and outpointed his opponent 66-52.

“It’s not easy to achieve [making back-to-back finals in Marseille],” Humbert admitted. “It’s a lot of pressure.”

Around the Palais des Sports de Marseille

No. 1 seeds Hugo Nys of Monaco and Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France were upset French wild cards Benjamin Bonzi and Pierre-Hugues Herbert, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 10-7, for a spot in Sunday’s doubles final against No. 2 seeds Sander Gille of Belgium and Jan Zielinski of Poland.

Bonzi and Herbert combined for five aces, won 70 percent of points on their first serves, saved seven of eight break points they faced while breaking Nys and Roger-Vasselin’s serve twice in eight tries. They were outpointed 79-75.

Bonzi and Herbert, who are 2-0 in match tie-breaks this season, will go into the title match with a 4-0 record. Gille and Zielinski, finalists last week in Rotterdam, are 8-3 on the season and have won six of their last seven matches.

Saturday’s Open 13 Provence results

Sunday’s Open 13 Provence order of play

By the numbers

Among active players on the ATP Tour, Daniil Medvedev has appeared in the second-most finals (38), behind Novak Djokovic (141). Third place is a tie between Alexander Zverev and Marin Cilic (37).

“Quotable …”

“I played two good matches; I didn’t lose my serve. I returned pretty well against two tough servers. It’s always better to win more easily because it gives you more confidence in your shots, in your game. Two very good matches and looking forward to the next one.”

– Top seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia, during his on-court interview, following his quarterfinal victory over Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany on Friday.

Search

Brigitte Urban
Tennis photographer
camera lens

International Blogs

Florian Heer

Meanwhile in Germany…. Internationale Tennis-Saison in Deutschland eröffnet

January 27, 2025

Dietmar Kaspar

Schwaben Open kehren 2025 in die bayerischen Sommerferien zurück

December 16, 2024

Podcast

Categories