By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, August 21, 2020
Gilles Simon swept top-seeded Daniil Medvedev 6-4, 6-0 to charge into the Marseille semifinals with his first Top 5 win since 2016.
Photo credit: Open 13 Provence Facebook
Daniil Medvedev is one of the game's most confounding players.
Facing the US Open finalist, Gilles Simon always has the answers.
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The slender Simon maintained his mastery of Medvedev racing through eight straight games closing a 6-4, 6-0 thrashing of the top-seeded Russian in Marseille.
The two-time Marseille champion beat the US Open finalist for the third time in as many meetings advancing to his fifth Open 13 Provence semifinal.
"I managed to make a very good game," Simon told the Open 13 Provence website afterward. "There was a lot of exchanges but I managed to put my tennis down and put them all in it.
"It's like that, sometimes there are opponents that you do better [against] and it's true that his style of play suits me."
The 67-minute sweep is Simon's first Top 5 win since October, 2016 when he dispatched then world No. 3 Stan Wawrinka en route to the Shanghai semifinals.
Simon will face 19-year-old Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime for a spot in the final.
The seventh-seeded Auger-Aliassime beat Belarusian qualifier Egor Gersimov 7-5, 6-2 in today's final qarterfinal.
Marseille is Simon's stomping ground: the 35-year-old Frenchman improved to 29-11 at the event—his most wins at any single tournament.
Auger-Aliassime advanced to his third semifinal of the season. The 18th-ranked Canadian was runner-up to Frenchman Gilles Simon in the Rotterdam final last Sunday.
In their lone prior meeting, Auger-Aliassime topped Simon 7-5, 6-4 on the Stuttgart grass last summer.