Danil Medvedev defeated defending champion Andrey Rublev in the final Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to win a third consecutive championship.
Former world number one Medvedev was briefly dropped from the top 10 after a tough 12 months following an early loss at the Australian Open, but has since responded perfectly.
The Russian took the ATP Tour titles. Rotterdam and after finishing Doha and Novak Djokovic’s undefeated start to the season in the semi-finals in Dubai in the last two weeks, he had a 6-2, 6-2 win over his friend and compatriot Rublev.
Rublev responded with two consecutive wins after losing his first four professional matches against his former junior rival.
At the peak of his game, however, he was overtaken by Medvedev, the 27-year-old slowing down to victory at one hour and eight minutes, breaking the serve in the opening game of the game.
Heading to Indian Wells next week on a 14-game winning streak, Medvedev said in a field interview broadcast by Amazon Prime Video: “It’s great because the start of the year wasn’t perfect.
“In tennis, when you don’t win tournaments, you always have doubts no matter what happens in training, so I used to have a lot of doubts and now it feels better. I’m really happy with these three weeks and I’m looking forward to the next ones.”