{"id":223838,"date":"2025-10-18T23:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T23:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/223838\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T23:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T23:32:07","slug":"james-duckworth-falls-at-almaty-open-semi-final-stage-against-daniil-medvedev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/223838\/","title":{"rendered":"James Duckworth falls at Almaty Open semi-final stage against Daniil Medvedev"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">All week, Australia&#8217;s James Duckworth has bucked the odds in Kazakhstan, but his progress towards just a second ATP Tour final was ended one match short by former world number one Daniil Medvedev.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Duckworth had rattled off five victories in seven days at the Almaty Open after progressing through qualifying and later knocking out the number seven seed Gabriel Diallo, of Canada, and <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-10-18\/james-duckworth-atp-tour-astana-open-semi-final\/105907190\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/105907190\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">then defeating Italian number three seed \u2014 and world number 22 \u2014 Flavio Cobolli<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">On Saturday, he went toe to toe with number two seed Medvedev in the semi-finals, winning a gripping tiebreaker to take the first set, before the Russian came back to win 6-7 (8-10) 6-3 6-2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Duckworth reached the final in Almaty four years ago but his age (33), injury record and world ranking (number 138) suggested a repeat was improbable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Medvedev, who had won their only other meeting, admitted he was pleased to win after being pushed so hard by Duckworth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/radio\/programs\/abc-sport-daily\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that&#8217;s making headlines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;I think the level was incredible today, from both me and my opponent,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;In the tie-break, I could have played better, but it happens. Throughout the match there were some amazing points from both of us, so I&#8217;m really happy to be able to win this match.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Duckworth&#8217;s superb week moved him up to number 108 on the ATP live rankings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Medvedev has had a turbulent year, including a big fine for a meltdown during his first-round defeat at the US Open, and he is aiming to win his first tour-level title since Rome in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">His form has picked up in recent weeks though, and by reaching his 40th tour-level final, he has become the second active male player after Novak Djokovic (143) to achieve that feat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">In Sunday&#8217;s final he will face France&#8217;s Corentin Moutet, the number eight seed, who beat Alex Michelsen of the US in straight sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All week, Australia&#8217;s James Duckworth has bucked the odds in Kazakhstan, but his progress towards just a second&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[132199,13832,64,63,22960,70624,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-223838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-almaty-open","9":"tag-atp-tour","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-daniil-medvedev","13":"tag-james-duckworth","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}