Jannik Sinner defeated Daniil Medvedev in the men’s final in the Californian desert in two tight tiebreaker sets lasting almost two hours, winning his first Indian Wells Masters 1000 title, and doing it without dropping a set. With this win, he became the youngest man ever (age – 24 years) to win every big trophy there is in hard court tennis, which includes the six Masters 1000 played on hard courts, the Australian Open, the US Open and the World Tour Finals. He is only the third man to achieve this feat, after Roger Federer did it at age 30 years and Novak Djokovic at age 31 years.
This is also the first time a men’s player has won back-to-back Masters 1000s without dropping a set (since the Masters series began in 1990), after he won the Paris Masters in a similar dominant fashion in November 2025. What’s even more fascinating is that post Paris, he won the ATP World Tour Finals as well without dropping a set! Such has been the dominance of the current world number 2.
A final filled with tactical adjustments
The Indian Wells final was nothing short of intriguing, filled with tactical adjustments and clean ball striking. Both players had history on the line, with Medvedev also aiming to become the fourth men’s player ever to complete the hard court Masters 1000s set of 6. To note, Andre Agassi also won all hard court Masters 1000s (5) held during his era.
Carlos Alcaraz is the reason that these two hard court specialists have not been able to add the Indian Wells title to their trophy collection. The high bouncing courts with warm conditions has accentuated the Spaniard’s high top-spin game, where he beat both Sinner and Medvedev in the semi-final and final in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024.
Medvedev playing with confidence
Medvedev seemed to pick up right from where he left off against Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final, playing with the kind of freedom and confidence we’ve seen him demonstrate during the 2019-2023 period, when he was the most consistent player on hard courts on tour. He matched Sinner from the baseline, with the match lighting up in the second game of the match itself, when they exchanged blows in a 28-shot rally, with Medvedev coming out on top with a backhand winner from a short ball.
The Russian’s tactic of relying on the consistency of his groundstrokes has not changed, but what was different from the past is that he’s been taking the ball early, much closer to the baseline, thus being able to rush his opponents, more importantly the big two (Alcaraz and Sinner). The Russian’s cross-court backhand was on song right from the start, each of those hits landing flat and deep like an arrow, pushing Sinner into back into his backhand corner. It was not surprising at all when mid-match a statistic popped up, showing Medvedev’s average speed on the groundstrokes had increased by around 5 mph compared to last year at Indian Wells.
No player gave up his serve till the end and only two break points were generated in the entire match, going to Sinner in the seventh game of the match with Medvedev saving both, one of them by coming to the net! Medvedev’s first serve % was only 55% in this match, however, he was serving well at important moments and mostly targeting
Sinner’s forehand on the deuce side. But the key differentiator was Sinner’s serving performance, one of the best ones of his career. He lost only 4 points out of a total of 47 points played on his first serve (win % of 91%), which is quite staggering. Medvedev was standing far back from the baseline on the returns, like usual, which was not paying dividends. He did try stepping up on some of those Sinner first serves, but the Italian’s spot serving never really let the Russian make any inroads in his service games. With a first serve % of ~65% (not that high, but good), Sinner cruised through most of his service games.
Tight first set
There was very little to separate the two players in the first set and at 4-5 in the tiebreak on Sinner’s serve, after hitting a deep backhand to Sinner’s drop shot, Medvedev had a chance to put away a forehand volley right in his strike zone on Sinner’s looping forehand, which he let pass and it landed in. This point would have given Medvedev two set points, one of them on his serve. But it was not to be and Sinner closed out the set 8-6 in the tiebreak, connecting a forehand return at 6-6 and then finding another serve.
At this moment, this was difficult to digest for Medvedev, having gone toe-to-toe for an hour in the scorching heat with Sinner and had nothing to show on the scoreboard.
But one of the virtues of the Russian is his patience. He kept at it in the second set, maintaining his level, keeping his chances alive. But Sinner’s serve was relentless, never dropping in pace and precision. Serving at 4-5 in the second set, Medvedev hit a cross-court forehand at a sharp angle with pace which Sinner somehow got back. In reply, Medvedev hit a short backhand right at Sinner and then hit an unconvincing forehand volley to which Sinner hit a beautiful backhand cross lob for a winner. 0-15, the crowd went wild and it felt like a momentum shift, with the Russian in a spot of bother. However, he stepped up, engaging in some fearless ball striking off both wings from the baseline, forcing errors out of Sinner to level the set at 5-5. The match was peaking here and it felt like if Medvedev could stretch this to a deciding set and make it physical, he would probably be the favourite, given Sinner’s track record in the heat.
At 30-30, Sinner fires two first serves to close out the game and make it 6-5. Then serving again to stay in the set, Medvedev goes down 0-15 again and then comes up with a stunning inside out backhand in a baseline exchange and eventually forces another tiebreaker.
Medvedev up 4-0 in the tiebreak!
Medvedev was up 4-0 in the second set tiebreak, and it seemed Sinner’ serve had dropped off slightly with him shaking his right hand out due to cramps. And this is when Medvedev turned tentative for the first time in match and put his foot off the pedal, not accelerating on the next forehand return. Medvedev was unlucky at 4-2 when his cross court backhand reply to Sinner’s short ball clipped the net and gave Sinner a clean passage to hit a backhand down-the-line winner.
Medvedev made another forehand error on the next point, which made it 4-4. Sinner then found his serve backing it up with a solid serve+1 off-forehand and a forehand smash to make it 5-4. And then a gruelling rally ensued, with Medvedev running Sinner ragged side-to-side, however, the Italian showcased his brilliant defensive skills, hanging in the rally till he found a sharp angle on the cross-court backhand which just clipped the sideline and finally forced an error from Medvedev. This was a big blow to the Russian’s resolve.
The next point, Sinner connects a big forehand return on Medvedev’s second serve to close out the match, winning seven points on the trot in the tiebreak.Sinner being more clutch in the decisive tiebreaks eventually decided the outcome of this match. A rivalry which had started with Medvedev winning the first six encounters,
Sinner has completely turned it around and has now won 9 of their last 10 meetings, with the lone defeat coming in the 5-set Wimbledon 2024 quarterfinal. But even though this match ended in straight sets, it has reignited men’s tennis. Medvedev has shown glimpses of his best tennis, arguably even better than his past best, considering the aggressive brand of tennis he is playing now. Alcaraz mentioned in his post-match semifinal press conference that he has never seen Medvedev play at this level!
See the highlights from the final below:
Challenger for the Big Two?
Medvedev has proven that he can go toe-to-toe with the big two, at least on the hard courts for now. He beat Alcaraz convincingly and was extremely close to going back- to-back against Sinner, which no one has done since Novak Djokovic in the 2023 World Tour Finals. Both players won 65% of their second serve points, another indicator how evenly matched this contest was.
Tennis fans have been longing for a third guy to disrupt the big two stranglehold on men’s tennis, and while Draper, Fils, Mensik, Fonseca and Tien have shown promising signs, a resurgent Medvedev at 30 years old would be as exciting a prospect, if not more!
Thanks for reading! Until next time.
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