Daniil Medvedev defeats Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach Rotterdam Open semi-finals, Grigor Dimitrov wins a thriller

Daniil Medvedev defeated Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-2 6-4 to reach the semi-finals of the Rotterdam Open.

Auger-Aliassime won last year’s event but his title defence is over as Medvedev continued his unbeaten head-to-head against the Canadian, which is now at five victories.

He will play Grigor Dimitrov in the last four on Saturday, after the Bulgarian won a thrilling match against Alex de Minaur.

“Today was my best match of the week, but I have to build on this,” said Medvedev.

“Usually, the best week’s you play, many times you’re going to play your best tennis in the last match, so that’s definitely a goal.

“But I’m happy with my level today, beating someone like Felix in straight sets.”

The opening four games were shared before Medvedev broke in the fifth game and stormed his way to the first set in 36 minutes, despite break point opportunities for Auger-Aliassime.

Both players had breaks of serve early in the second set before the key moment came at 3-3 when a poor service game from Auger-Aliassime handed another break to the 2021 US Open champion.

This time, it proved crucial as Auger-Aliassime wasn’t able to break back and both players held their next service games which meant Medvedev was through with an impressive display.

Dimitrov wins a Rotterdam classic

There was a lot more drama in the opening quarter-final between Dimitrov’s 6-3 3-6 7-6(6) win over De Minaur earlier on Friday.

Dimitrov broke in the fourth game of the first set which turned out to be enough to take the opener. However, De Minaur took advantage of a dip from Dimitrov which saw the Australian win five games in a row to take the match to a decider.

De Minaur went 3-1 up before Dimitrov hit back by winning the next two games. There was nothing to separate the pair as they shared the next six games to send the match to a final tie-break.

It looked like De Minaur had the match in his hands when he had two match points at 6-4 in the tie-break but Dimitrov stormed back to win the next four points, with an extraordinary rally at the end.

In the other-quarter-finals, Jannik Sinner got the better of Stan Wawrinka 6-1 6-3 with another impressive victory in Rotterdam.

He will play wild card Tallon Griekspoor in the second semi-final after he beat Gijs Brouwer 6-4 6-4 in the battle between the Dutch pair.