Stat of the Day: Daniil Medvedev now has the most ATP wins in a season since Nadal in 2017

When Daniil Medvedev recorded his 60th win of the year in Shanghai a few weeks ago, he didn’t seem that excited about that particular match-win milestone—but there was another one on his mind.

“I will be honest, I don’t think I care in a way how many wins I have in a season,” he said that day, “but what I heard is that my record is 63 after the match, and that’s pretty close so I'd be happy to beat it.

“Sometimes we manage to beat records that were here for a long time, sometimes it’s a record against yourself, you know, a new title, something new. And if I manage to do it, it’s going to be great, a great season, and I’m happy to continue this way.”

Well, Medvedev has done it—with his 6-4, 7-6 (6) semifinal victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas in Vienna on Saturday he now has 64 wins in 2023, surpassing his previous personal best of 63 wins in 2021.

And there’s more: Medvedev now has the most wins for a man in a single season since Rafael Nadal had 68 wins in 2017.

Nadal won six tournaments that year, and Medvedev is now a win away from his sixth tournament of the year, having already lifted trophies in Rotterdam, Doha, Dubai, Miami and Rome.

Medvedev had lost to Tsitsipas in their last two indoor hard-court meetings, both at the ATP Finals in 2019 and 2022, but he snapped that mini-streak in straight sets in Vienna, getting the only break of the match in the seventh game of the first set and holding all 10 of his own service games, fighting off all three break points he faced.

And it was a high-quality match from both players—not only did Medvedev finish with more than twice as many winners as unforced errors, 22 to 10, but Tsitsipas was also very much in the positives with 32 winners to 20 unforced errors at the end of the day.

Almost a quarter of the 139 total points in the match ended with forehand winners—13 for Medvedev, 20 for Tsitsipas.

Medvedev is now a win away from becoming a two-time champion at a tour-level event for the first time in his career, all 20 of his career tour-level titles at the moment coming at 20 different events.

The world No. 3 captured the Vienna title for the first time a year ago.