Medvedev's corner: how the Russian took the title in Brisbane
Daniil Medvedev has successfully started the 2026 season by becoming the champion of the ATP 250 tournament in Brisbane. In the final, the Russian beat American Brandon Nakashima in two games. — 6:2, 7:6 (7:1). For Medvedev, this title was the 22nd in his career. Now Daniil will be in a good mood to prepare for the Australian Open, which starts in just a week — next Sunday, January 18. The week turned out to be a little worse for our other top player, Andrey Rublev.
One set lost
Medvedev showed in Brisbane that the rise in his level of play and results at the end of last season after the change of coaching staff was not an accident. Daniil's best results last fall were the semi-finals of the Masters in Shanghai and the title at the ATP-250 in Alma Ata. After that, Medvedev worked productively with Thomas Johansson and Rohan Götzke in the offseason, and the reward was a trophy at the very first tournament of the new year. By the way, Daniel won the singles title for the first time in the first week of the season — before that, his earliest victory was in the second week in Sydney (where he won the first tournament of his career in 2018).
Medvedev's opponent in the final was 24-year-old Nakashima, who is five and a half years younger than the Russian. Brandon doesn't have enough stars from the sky, but he plays at a consistently good level, having been in the top 50 of the rating for a long time.
On the way to the final, Medvedev lost only one game, to Kamil Maikhshak in the quarterfinals. Nakashima, on the other hand, did not give his opponents a set at all, and he began the tournament with a confident victory over second seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. As for personal meetings, Daniel led Brandon 2-0. Both previous matches took place at the Masters — the Russian won in two games on the hard court of Indian Wells - 2023 and in three on the clay of Madrid-2025.
Daniel started the final match very confidently, and Brandon obviously did not enter the game. Medvedev set a good pace, but Nakashima made a lot of mistakes. This quickly resulted in a 4-0 victory for the former world number one. It was only with this score that the American found his tennis, and Medvedev relaxed a little. Fortunately, Daniil did not make himself and his fans too nervous, although in both remaining games of the game he served after 40:15 and brought it to a break point.
It is logical that after the struggle at the end of the first set, there was no talk of a serious breakaway for the Russian in the second game. Medvedev was only able to catch on to the reception once — and he took great advantage of the chance, making a break from 30-0! Brandon helped himself with mistakes, and on the second break point Daniil perfectly shot a backhand across the line. After that, Medvedev pulled out his games twice in a row from 0:30, but the third time, during the match, such a trick did not work. Having missed two matchballs due to his inaccuracies, Daniel allowed his opponent to make a break for the first time in the final. However, the setback turned out to be local — Medvedev confidently reached the tie-break, where he literally knocked Nakashima off the court, losing only one point.
Avoid the top 4
Daniel continued his unique streak, having already won 22 trophies at various tournaments in different cities. By the way, Medvedev has never won in Melbourne, where the Australian Open is taking place. He rose to a clean second place in terms of the number of trophies in singles among Russians, ahead of Nikolay Davydenko (21). Only Evgeny Kafelnikov (26) has more titles. And among all current tennis players, Daniil now ranks a clean fifth, ahead of Marin Cilic. Only the top four players are ahead of Medvedev: Novak Djokovic has 101 titles (the third best in the history of tennis), while Carlos Alcaraz, Yannick Sinner and Alexander Zverev each have 24.
Daniel will now rise to 12th place in the ranking. This is an important moment before the Australian Open draw, as the 9-12 seeds in the 1/8 finals fall on 5-8 rackets of the tournament, and 13-16 — on 1-4. So Medvedev will now avoid a potential duel with someone from the top 4 in the fourth round of the next major. If he reaches this stage in Melbourne, our tennis player will most likely get either Lorenzo Musetti, Alex de Minaur, Felix Auger-Alliassim, or Ben Shelton as opponents.
Semi-finals and finals
Andrey Rublev claimed the title in Hong Kong. In the 1/8 finals, the Russian beat Wu Yibin, and in the quarterfinals he defeated Nuno Borges. Andrey fought with the first seed Lorenzo Musetti to reach the finals, losing to the Italian in a hard-fought three-set match.
In the final, the Italian lost to Alexander Bublik (now the representative of Kazakhstan will make his debut in the top 10) and could barely hold back tears at the award ceremony (he lost the seventh decisive match in a row in singles). However, an hour later, Muzetti was already fighting in a duet with Lorenzo Sonego for the doubles title against the Russian tandem. On the way to the finals, Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev defeated Patrick Rickle./Petra Nouzou, Theo Arribaggia/Albano Olivetti and Vasila Kirkova/By Bart Stevens. Muzetti and Sonego coped with Miomir Ketsmanovich/Alexander Muller, Alexander Erler/By Robert Galloway and Gabriel Diallo/By Chuck Wong.
Bookmakers gave roughly equal odds on Italian and Russian duets. The ending itself turned out to be stubborn. In the first game, the guys exchanged quick breaks, and it seemed that things were moving towards a tie-break. However, with the score 4:5, Rublev and Khachanov lost their serve.
But they recovered in the second set. The Russians scored a quick break (2:1), and then the second (4:1), taking the game quite easily. In the end, everything was decided in the championship tiebreak, where the Russians did not go at all. A 10-1 defeat is a cold shower that needs to be forgotten as soon as possible before the start of the Australian Open.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
