Daniil Medvedev outclassed his opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semi-final of the Australian Open to win 6-4, 6-2, 7-5 after two hours and nine minutes on Rod Laver Arena.
The pair have had a notoriously ill-blooded relationship since their first meeting in Miami 2018 and it was the Russian that came out on top once again to extend his head-to-head lead over the Greek to 6-1.
The 25-year-old cruised into a two-set lead and was up by a break in the third while playing near-immaculate tennis. Before, the crowd who favoured Tsitsipas started to affect procedures.
The fifth seed was given an hope of completing another comeback from two sets down by breaking back at 3-3 but squandered two break points to potentially push the match into a fourth set.
The Russian then moved up another gear to regain the break advantage with a stunning backhand passing shot down the line, before closing the match out with a total of 46 winners and 17 aces throughout.
The result means fourth-seed will compete in only his second ever grand slam final and will face the eight-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic looking to become the first man to ever beat the world no.1 in the final of the tournament on Sunday.
Medvedev spoke post-match on the scale of the task that lies ahead of him and what he learnt from his defeat against Rafael Nadal in the US Open 2019 final: ‘I took a lot of experience from the match, it was my first grand slam final against one of the greatest and on Sunday I’m coming up against one of the other greatest.
‘Against Rafa it was his experience that got him through that crazy match, so hopefully if we have a crazy match on Sunday we can see what I’ve learnt.’
‘I like that I don’t have a lot of pressure because Djokovic has never lost in the eight times he was here in the final, so he has more things to lose than me and all the pressure because he wants to catch Roger [Federer] and Rafa in Grand Slams.
‘So I just hope I can get out there and play some good tennis and as we’ve seen before I can beat the biggest names on tour.’
The victory was the Russian’s 20th consecutive tour and he joined the elite list of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Andy Murray and Juan Martin Del-Potro as the only active players to achieve this feat in the open era.
Most remarkably, 12 of the 20 wins for Medvedev came against the top 10 ranked players in the world and importantly includes a straight-set victory over his next opponent and world no.1 Djokovic, on route to winning the Nitto ATP Finals 2020.
However, The Serbian holds a narrow head-to-head lead over the Russian having won four times in their seven total encounters.
The world no.1 was cast as a major doubt to continue in the tournament after suffering an abdominal tear in his third round victory over Taylor Fritz, however he battled through and put the injury to the back of the fans’ minds with a straight-set victory over Aslan Karatsev in the semi-final.
A win in the final for Djokovic would see him move to within two of Federer and Nadal’s record of 20 grand slam titles as well as extend his own record of most Australian Open titles to nine.
Elsewhere, Britian’s Joe Salisbury and his American partner Rajeev Ram, made it to the final of the men’s doubles for a second consecutive year as the reigning champions recorded a straight-set victory Britain’s Jamie Murray and his Brazilian partner Bruno Soares.
Salisbury was then unable to get the opportunity to face his men’s doubles partner in the final of the mixed doubles as he was also in action with American partner Desirae Krawczyk. However, the pair were edged out in a champions tiebreak by Australian wildcards Matthew Ebden and Samantha Stosur.
