There are aspects of tennis that remain a mystery to Russia's Daniil Medvedev.
He doesn't know, for instance, exactly how he was able to anticipate where two of the sport's biggest servers were going to place their shots at the National Bank Open in Toronto this week. Doing so, though, was key to winning the tournament title.
Medvedev, the No. 1 seed, beat qualifier Reilly Opelka 6-4, 6-3 on Sunday, turning the six-foot-11 American's booming blasts away with seeming ease. He absorbed similar rockets from John Isner of the U.S. in a 6-2, 6-2 win on Saturday.
"I still don't understand many things about tennis," Medvedev told reporters after clinching the championship.
"The semifinal and the final, I don't know what happened, but except for a few moments, I could kind of read and feel where (Opelka and Isner) were serving and just get a racket on the ball and get it in court.''
Medvedev, 25, saved 4-of-4 break points and won 73 per cent of his total service points in the one-hour, 25-minute match on Sunday.
Opelka, playing in his first-ever ATP Masters 1000 final, won just 63 per cent of his first service points with eight aces and three double faults.
Conditions on the court were windy, Opelka said, and that made it difficult for the 23-year-old to be consistently powerful.
``But even when I hit some big shots, he countered well and it was very tough to disrupt him at all,'' he said. ``All expected but he really executed well.''
Medvedev, the world No. 2, played much of the match from well below the baseline in order to respond to Opelka's massive serve.
The Russian faced a triple break point early in the first set but saved all three, coming back from 0-40 to hold serve at 2-2.
Opelka was broken in the next game when Medvedev sent a giant rocket screeching down the line.
Opelka, ranked 32nd in the world, faced another break in the first game of the second set after Medvedev put another forehand shot straight down the line, but the American held on for the save.
A double fault gave Medvedev the break on Opelka's next serve and the Russian went up 2-1.
Midway through the second set, it was Medvedev who faced a break. Opelka seemed for a moment poised to finally have a chance until he sent a return just wide, and Medvedev held serve to make it 4-2.
``He's really fast, he's really quick. It's hard to disrupt him. It's hard to hurt him. It's hard to really hurt him,'' Opelka said.
Medvedev sealed the victory by breaking Opelka once again, with the American sending a return into the top of the net.
Medvedev previously made it to the tournament's final in 2019 when the event was known as the Rogers Cup but lost to Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal in straight sets.
This year, the Russian had to constantly adjust his game to win matches and said he was ``on the edge of losing'' to Poland's Hubert Hurkacz in the quarterfinal. Medvedev ultimately took a 2-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(5) victory.
``The way I played, the way I fought and the way I won a few of these matches gives me a huge boost of confidence for next tournament,'' said Medvedev, who'll compete in the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati next week before heading to New York for the U.S. Open later this month.
``But again, confidence is such a thing you can get it quite fast but you can lose it very fast also so I'm just going to try to build up on it and keep it at least for the U.S. Open series.''
