17 moments of Medvedev: Daniil barely qualified for the Final round, losing to Alcaraz

Last week was marked by a successful performance by the leaders of our tennis. Diana Schneider won a major tournament in Tokyo, which was attended by the first racket of the world Elena Rybakina. Daniil Medvedev, who played 17 matches in October, reached the semifinals in Vienna, where he lost to seven-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz in a tight battle. This result allowed the 30-year-old Russian to qualify for the Final ATP tournament, which will be held in Turin from December 15 to 22.

Success with coach at Schneider

In Tokyo 2026, Russian second racket Diana Schneider beat Belarusian Alexandra Sosnovich in three sets, achieved a strong-willed victory in the quarterfinals against Filipina Alexandra Eala. (2:6, 7:6, 6:4), and in the semifinals with 18-year-old Slovakian Mia Pogankova, she saved a setball in a tie-break. Prior to that, Diana had lost four times in the semifinals this season. In the title match, the 22-year-old native of the Samara Region put the squeeze on Canadian Leila Fernandez after a nervous second game in the third set. (6:4, 5:7, 6:2). Diana first led 6-4, 4-0 and then applied for the title with a score of 5:4, but could not finish the match in a calm mode. Fortunately, the setback did not break our athlete, and at the crucial moment she was able to return to the winning spirit.

As a result, Schneider won her first singles title in the 2026 season and the sixth in her career in the Japanese capital. On Monday, November 2, she returned from 13th place in the world to a personal best of 11th place. A year ago, the Russian flew to Tokyo in the 1/8 finals, and now, instead of 60 points, she will receive 500 points — an increase of 440 points. Nevertheless, Diana does not qualify for the Final tournament either in singles or in pairs: the line-ups of the participants of the final championship in Indian Wells have been determined, and only mass refusals for health reasons can change anything here.

It should be noted that Elena Rybakina, having won one match in Tokyo, guaranteed herself the first place in the rating at the end of the year. However, then the representative of Kazakhstan withdrew due to a neck injury — so Fernandez passed the quarterfinals without a game. The 2025 champion Belinda Bencic refused to play in the Japanese capital due to a foot injury. Fatigue and injuries reduced the motivation of the leaders at the end of the season.

But it is unfair to reduce Diana's current breakthrough to the weakness of her rivals. If we leave out the title race, we must admit that Schneider is having a good season in both singles and doubles. She reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam for the first time: at Roland Garros, she knocked out world number one Arina Sobolenko, winning back with 3:6, 1:4 (however, then unexpectedly lost to Maya Khvalinskaya). Our compatriot also performed well in Wuhan and Ningbo.

As a pair, Schneider was unable to qualify for the Final Tournament in Indian Wells due to the lack of a permanent partner and a drop in her ranking (now Diana is only 18th in the WTA Doubles Rankings). Olympic silver in Paris 2024 and the success of 2025 made her duet with Mirra Andreeva famous. But this year Mirra decided to focus on the individual category and abandon doubles performances at the Grand Slams. The MiDi still made it to the final in Madrid and won the thousandth clay in Rome, and at the US Open, Diana competed in the semifinals with Alice Mertens. This is a very solid result of a year in which the main efforts were focused on the individual.

Schneider also found stability with the coach. After parting with Igor Andreev, Dinara Safina, Marius Kopil and Carlos Martinez were quickly replaced in her staff. But since August 2025, Sasha Bain has been working with Diana all the time. Now Schneider confidently occupies the niche of the second racket of the country after Andreeva — thanks to singles, not the famous doubles duet. Tokyo brought her her third WTA 500 title, but the next bar is higher: a thousandth singles trophy or a Grand Slam final. This is a task for next year, for which you will have to work very hard.

—Diana's great result in Tokyo,— Olympic champion Elena Vesnina said in an interview with Izvestia. — She got into amazing shape by the end of the season. Her collaboration with Sasha Bayin is very fruitful. There are noticeable changes in the game. Diana began to act more aggressively. Now she plays more competently in the account.

Vienna interest: Medvedev may qualify for the Final this week

Mirra Andreeva secured her participation in the last tournament of the year and is fighting for the top 2

Medvedev's achieved goal

Vienna was the fifth tournament in a row for Daniil Medvedev, where he reached at least the semifinals. At the same time, the series also includes two titles won by him in Hangzhou and Alma Ata. Between these two competitions were the Beijing semifinal against Novak Djokovic, which ended with the disqualification of the Russian for accidentally hitting a ball in the eye of a fan during the Serbian's serve for the match, and a similar stage of the Masters in Shanghai, where Daniil lost to Rafael Hodar. It is hardly necessary to emphasize separately that over the past month or so (Medvedev played his first match in Hangzhou on September 26), no one has played more than the leader of our tennis.

Daniel was seeded number three in the Austrian capital. Medvedev beat Daniel Merida-Aguilar, Cameron Norrie and Adrian Mannarino, and in the semifinals he faced the youngest career Slam winner in history, Carlos Alcaraz. For him, the match with our tennis player was the 11th in October (for the Russian, it was the 17th). As a result, the Spaniard looked fresher and gained an advantage due to this.

The first set ended with mistakes by Daniel, who failed to serve at 4:5. In the second game, the rivals exchanged breaks, and as a result, Medvedev reached the tie-break, pulling out the game at 4:5 with 0:30, but Alcaraz played too well there. After a couple of mistakes on the right at the start of the tennis lottery, the Spaniard seemed to shift gears and launched a series of excellent attacks, winning five points in a row.

"The tennis that Danya has been showing in the last month is impressive," Elena Vesnina continued. — He plays every week and always reaches the final stages. He needs to rest, gain strength, and regain his breath. He was playing to qualify for the Final round. The goal was achieved deservedly. There wasn't enough freshness with Alcaraz. An insulting defeat, but easily explained.

Thus, Daniil got a little more time to rest before the Paris Masters, where he, like the entire top eight seeding, starts from the second round. Last year, Medvedev reached the quarterfinals in Paris, winning two matches, and it would be good for the 52-week ranking to confirm that result. On the other hand, the quarterfinals of the Masters give 200 points, the same amount as each victory in the group stage of the Final Championship (where the eight strongest tennis players of the season will play). Right now, the main thing for a Russian is to properly assess his well—being, reserve strength and prepare for Turin in the best possible way.