Flavio Cobolli sends Medvedev into a tailspin and continues dreaming

Flavio Cobolli continues to amaze: in the round of 16 of the Madrid Masters 1000, on the court dedicated to Arantxa Sanchez, the 23-year-old Roman signed the most prestigious victory of his career: 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 against Daniil Medvedev, at the end of a battle that lasted two hours and twenty minutes, propelling him for the first time into the quarterfinals of a thousand-point tournament.

That against the Russian was a match that Cobolli seemed to be able to close in two sets, finding himself ahead 6-3 4-2, but that Medvedev managed to put back on his feet with tenacity, even going ahead in the third fraction.

The Madrid evening, however, had a different ending in store and Cobolli, despite finding himself trailing 4-3, scored ten consecutive points, twelve of the last thirteen, expressing a level of play that sent Medvedev into a tailspin and brought the hand of the match definitively in his favor.

For Cobolli it is the third career victory against a top 10, the second within a month after the one over Zverev in Munich. The virtual ranking even projects him as number 12 in the world and number 9 in the Race for the ATP Finals: numbers that until a few months ago seemed difficult even to imagine.

Now there are the quarters to face, with one more certainty: Flavio Cobolli doesn’t just know how to hang with the greats, he knows how to beat them.