Daniil Medvedev tore up the US Open script by knocking out defending champion and world number one Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final.
The 27-year-old Russian, the Flushing Meadows champion in 2021, will face Novak Djokovic – the man he beat to win his first and only grand slam so far – in Sunday’s final after a shock 7-6 (3) 6-1 3-6 6-3 victory.
The smart money this fortnight had been on another Djokovic-Alcaraz final, a repeat of the Wimbledon epic which the Spaniard won and another chapter in a burgeoning rivalry.
But Medvedev, the world number three, had other ideas and, coming from behind a near flawless serve, looked like he was back to being the player who swept to glory two years ago.
“It’s amazing, especially beating someone like Carlos,” he said. “I lost easy to him two times this year so I had a lot of doubts.
“I said I needed to play 11 out of 10, and I actually played 12 out of 10, except in the third set. He’s pretty unbelievable so to beat him you need to be better than yourself and fortunately I was.”
Medvedev has had a love-hate relationship with the US Open crowd over the years.
He added: “I have to be honest, the crowd was unbelievable today. We had some crazy points and I felt, let’s call it, love to both guys.
“At 5-3 I guess we had some Spanish guys calling out between first and second serves, but they can go to sleep now.”
If the alarm bells had yet to start ringing for Alcaraz when he lost a tight first set on a tie-break, they were surely chiming when he was broken twice in a one-sided second set to slip 2-0 down.
The 20-year-old had never come back from two sets down to win a match in his career so far.
But after two hours of toiling away Alcaraz did engineer his first break of the Medvedev serve, sealing the deal with a superb backhand lob to halve the deficit.
The sixth game of the fourth set proved pivotal, a near 15-minute affair at the end of which Alcaraz missed his volley and Medvedev had the break for 4-2.
At 3-5 down Alcaraz had two break points but Medvedev hung in, only to then double-fault on his first match point.
Alcaraz saved a second and third match point, but Medvedev converted the fourth to reach his third US Open final in five years.
