Russia’s Daniil Medvedev through to quarterfinals of ATP tournament in New York

MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/. Russia’s Daniil Medvedev has reached the quarterfinals of the ATP (the Association of Tennis Professionals) Western and Southern Open tournament in New York after defeating on Tuesday Slovenia’s Aljaz Bedene. The Russian tennis star defeated his Slovenian opponent in one hour and eight minutes booking a straight sets win of 6-3; 6-3. Medvedev is now set to face in the next round the winner of the match between Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain and Karen Khachanov of Russia. Medvedev, 24, enjoyed a breakthrough season last year as he won two tournaments of the Masters series (in Cincinnati and Shanghai), as well as ATP tournaments in Saint Petersburg and Sofia. Moreover, he was the finalist of the US Open, Masters series tournament in Montreal and ATP tournaments in Washington, Barcelona and Brisbane. The Russian player, who is currently 5th in the ATP Rankings, hit the international media headlines last summer with his maiden Grand Slam final appearance at the US Open, losing a dramatic five-set thriller to Spain’s Rafael Nadal. Earlier in the year, the Women Tennis Association (WTA) and the ATP announced their joint decision to suspend indefinitely all tennis tournaments until July 31 due to the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus. The ATP Western & Southern Open tennis tournament is played at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York between August 22 and 29. This current tennis tournament in the United States is viewed as a delayed international competition before the much-awaited 2020 US Open. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in June that the prestigious Grand Slam tennis tournament in the United States, the 2020 US Open, would be hosted by New York in line with the initial schedule, namely between August 31 and September 13, but without spectators in attendance. A number of international tennis players decided earlier against going to New York for the 2020 US Open amid the ongoing global spread of the novel coronavirus and among them were World’s No. 1 female tennis player Ashleigh Barty of Australia, World’s No. 2 male tennis player Rafael Nadal of Spain, Dutch player Kiki Bertens (currently ranked 7th by the WTA), Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina (ranked 5th by the WTA), Swiss tennis star Stan Wawrinka (currently ranked 17th by the ATP), Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Svetlana Kuznetsova, as well as Romania’s Simona Halep. The United States is currently the leading country in terms of confirmed novel coronavirus cases, which exceed 5,916,260. The COVID-19 death toll in the country currently stands at 181,126. Over 3,218,510 patients have been reported to have recovered from the virus. COVID-19 In late December 2019, Chinese officials informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 23,841,520 people have been infected worldwide and more than 817,680 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 16,382,850 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe. Read more