WATCH: Daniil Medvedev delivers ‘smart’ underarm serve against Alexander Zverev at ATP Finals

Shahida Jacobs
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A smiling Daniil Medvedev

It was an unplanned tactic, but the underarm serve paid off for Daniil Medvedev during his ATP Finals win over Alexander Zverev.

Leading their opening rubber 6-3, 4-3, the world No 4 decided to mix things up at 30-30 as he surprised Zverev with an underarm serve.

The strategy worked as he won the point before going on to win the match 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 29 minutes.

Asked about the serve after the match, Medvedev replied: “I didn’t want to disrespect him in any way. That is why I did it at 30-30 [and] not at 40-0,” he said.

“Before the serve, my wide serve was not working as well as I would have liked it to today and he was returning good. So I was like, ‘I’m going to go for the T, probably.’ Then I saw that he was like five metres behind the baseline and I had the ball close to my racquet. So I am like, ‘Okay, go for it.’ That was the move, just to win the point.

“It actually worked, he made a good ball back, because he could have missed it. It could have even been an ace, but I am happy that it worked because that is also smart.”

He added: “No, [I was] not planning it at all. I can do it sometimes, let’s say, once a week, twice, once in two weeks in practice, just maybe a first serve to start, to laugh with my opponent or something like this. I did it once on clay at Roland Garros, because on clay it’s tougher to serve aces… Guys are far back, and it worked.”

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