How tennis' best match point of 2025 descended into Moutet and Medvedev chaos in Washington

New York Times

4 days ago

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.
This week, the best match point of 2025 descended into chaos, the WTA Tour showed off its depth and the temptations of tennis parallels returned.
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Any match between the master of the underarm serve, Corentin Moutet, and the tentacular Daniil Medvedev is likely to involve some cat-and-mouse, some junk balls, some improbably long points and a few bits of scrappy net dancing. So it was only right that during the quarterfinals of the D.C. Open in Washington, their match point contained all of the above.
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In a match interrupted by a lightning storm in the area and defined by extreme heat in which both players struggled, they returned to the court with Moutet leading 1-6, 6-4, 5-4. Medvedev had to serve when they came back and double-faulted three times in the game, giving his rival a leg-up toward victory. Moutet earned two match points and lost them both; on the third, the coup de grace came not from a favor, but from both players reveling in the kind of tennis that they have made their signature.
Medvedev looked to have saved another match point early in the exchange. He drew Moutet all the way from the back wall to the net with a drop shot, which the Frenchman lofted up. The ball was high, with the Russian at full stretch, but he had ample space to direct his overhead and win the point. Instead, net-cord fate would intervene…
Medvedev's overhead popped off the net cord, giving Moutet the opportunity to spring forward and prod the ball onto Medvedev's backhand. The Russian regained the upper hand with a backhand push down the line, but Moutet produced an improbable lob-volley on the stretch to send Medvedev scrambling to the back of the court and completely flip the dynamic of the rally. Still, it was far from over…
Moutet could not finish Medvedev off, paddling a half-volley into no-man's land. But he met the pass up the line with a sharply angled, short backhand volley, and Medvedev's long right arm could only dig it wide and into the tramlines, giving Moutet the victory.
The chaotic match point that a chaotic match — and pairing — deserved.
James Hansen
At the Grand Slams and 1,000-level events, facing a truly elite player at some stage comes with the territory. But on the WTA Tour, its 500-level events are showcasing how deep the quality goes, right from the opening rounds. This is especially true in the 500s immediately after majors, with players who have gone deep — or who just want some time on the practice court — taking a rest.
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Witness what went on at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. this past week. No Aryna Sabalenka, the world No. 1; no Coco Gauff, the world No. 2, and no Iga Świątek, the Wimbledon champion and world No. 3.
An opening for Jessica Pegula, the top seed, who got a bye in the first round? No: she met Leylah Fernandez, a Grand Slam finalist, in the round of 16, and lost in a barnstorming three-set match. Fernandez, who has been up and down in 2025, was there because she got past Maya Joint of Australia, who is quickly becoming a very dangerous opponent.
On the other side of the draw, Emma Navarro, the No. 2 seed, got a bye to face none other than Maria Sakkari, a two-time Indian Wells finalist who spent much of the past three seasons around the top 10. Sakkari had beaten Katie Boulter, a tough out, in her first match. Marta Kostyuk, the No. 7 seed, lost to a resurgent Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, in the first round. Raducanu got the prize of facing … A four-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1, in the shape of Naomi Osaka. She beat Osaka to make the quarterfinals.
Sakkari's reward for beating Navarro? Raducanu. Raducanu won that match too, extending her record over Sakkari to four straight-set victories in four meetings, but she couldn't get past Anna Kalinskaya in the semifinals. Kalinskaya had upset Clara Tauson, the No. 4 seed, in the previous round.
On and on it went through the tournament. Would 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina reap the reward? Wrong again: she ran into the inspired Fernandez in the semifinals, where they produced the match of the tournament. Fernandez won 6-7(2), 7-6(3), 7-6(9), and when the dust had settled, the Canadian faced Kalinskaya in the final and routed the Russian in straight sets to win the biggest title of her career.
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Tennis also just barely missed out on the Fernandez vs. Raducanu final that would have been a rematch of their U.S. Open final four years ago. Fernandez and Raducanu have followed different paths since then. Raducanu won that Grand Slam but has not reached a tour final since, struggling with injuries that she seems to just now be getting past. Week-in and week-out, Fernandez remains one of the great watches in tennis, but has never quite evolved decisively from the player she was in 2021.
In a tournament with plenty of upsets on paper, there was so much parity and quality in the draw — and so many players capable of so much in any given week — that the word 'upset' began to lose its meaning.
Matt Futterman
Both D.C. Open finals offered another opportunity for two unwanted labels to be cast aside: that of being a top player without a tour title. In the end, Kalinskaya and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina were both left as runners-up once again, in equally painful but distinct ways.
Kalinskaya, who played some of her best tennis of 2025 in beating Raducanu in the semifinals, thrived in Washington. Her flat, angled forehands pushed players outside the tramlines and behind the baseline, giving her a platform from which to attack. But against Fernandez, who is able to maneuver balls down the line even from close to her body on the forehand side, she appeared to run out of steam and never got into the contest.
A straight-sets defeat is in some ways less difficult to get past than losing a close final. At the 2024 Berlin Open, Kalinskaya had five championship points against Pegula, but lost them all in a 6-7(0), 6-4, 7-6(3) defeat.
That's how it has been for Davidovich Fokina in his recent finals, and it happened again against Alex de Minaur of Australia. The Spaniard led 5-2 in the third set against de Minaur, and led 5-3, 30-0 before losing his serve.
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But more painful were the three championship points lost, the last of which included a defensive lob from de Minaur which Davidovich Fokina could have put away with an overhead. Instead he let it bounce — to see if it would land wide — but it instead barely landed in. Davidovich Fokina also held championship points against Miomir Kecmanović of Serbia at the Delray Beach Open in February, missing what would have been a match-winning forehand as close to the sideline as de Minaur's lob landed — just on the wrong side of it.
James Hansen
A 16-year-old Taylor Townsend was the the world's No. 1 junior in singles 13 years ago. At 29, she is a world No. 1 again.
This time, Townsend is the world's top doubles player. She won her third title of the season this week in Washington, partnering with Zhang Shuai of China. She won the Australian Open in January, and the Dubai Tennis Championships the next month, with the player she has supplanted as world No. 1: Kateřina Siniaková of the Czech Republic. A lefty with a big time serve, an ability to cover the court and stick volleys, and a reputation as a teammate that always has her partner's back, Townsend had a decent week in singles as well, beating Tatjana Maria and Sofia Kenin to reach the quarterfinals in D.C.
That put her at No. 75 in the singles rankings, which, despite the oddity of it all, is the number that counts for her entry into the next Grand Slam doubles event. She has entered the revamped U.S. Open mixed with Ben Shelton, but their combined singles ranking won'tbe high enough to get one of the automatic entries into the draw. They are hoping for a wild card entry to compete for the $1 million first prize. Shelton is America's top rising star and a huge fan favorite. Townsend is a fan favorite as well — and she's a world No. 1. That should make them very hard to turn down.
Matt Futterman
🎾 ATP:
🏆 Alex de Minaur (7) def. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (12) 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(3) to win the Citi D.C. Open (500) in Washington, D.C. It is the Australian's first title of 2025.
🏆 Luciano Darderi (2) def. Carlos Taberner 6-3, 6-3 to win the Croatia Open Umag (250) in Umag, Croatia. It is the Italian's third title of 2025; only Carlos Alcaraz (5) has won more.
🏆 Alexander Bublik (1) def. Arthur Cazaux 6-4, 6-3 to win the Austrian Kitzbühel Open (250) in Kitzbühel, Austria. It is also his third ATP Tour title of 2025.
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🎾 WTA:
🏆 Leylah Fernandez def. Anna Kalinskaya 6-1, 6-2 to win the Citi D.C. Open (500) in Washington, D.C. It is her first WTA 500 title.
🏆 Marie Bouzková (5) def. Linda Nosková (1) 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 to win the Prague Open (250) in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the Czech's second WTA Tour title.
📈 Taylor Townsend rises 25 places in the singles rankings to go with her doubles world No. 1 berth, moving from No. 97 to No. 75.
📈 Alex de Minaur reenters the top 10, moving up five places from No. 13 to No. 8 after his win in Washington, D.C.
📈 Leylah Fernandez reenters the top 30 after rising 12 spots from No. 36 to No. 24.
📉 Francisco Cerúndolo falls five places from No. 19 to No. 24, dropping out of the top 20.
📉 Magda Linette drops six places from No. 28 to No. 34, putting her outside the top-32 cut for seeding at the U.S. Open.
📉 Matteo Berrettini tumbles 15 spots from No. 42 to No. 57.
🎾 ATP
📍Toronto: Canadian Open (1,000) featuring Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, João Fonseca, Gabriel Diallo.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV
🎾 WTA
📍Montreal, Canada: Canadian Open (1,000) featuring Coco Gauff, Iga Świątek, Jessica Pegula, Amanda Anisimova.
📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel
Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men's and women's tours continue.