Daniil Medvedev battles past Alexander Zverev to reach Halle final, Alexander Bublik awaits

In one of the deepest rivalries on the tour, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev met for the 20th time on Saturday, in the semifinals of Halle, but this one was special—it was their first meeting on grass.

And Medvedev is the one who came through, improving to 13-7 in their head-to-head with a grueling 7-6 (3), 6-7 (1), 6-4 win.

His victory over the world No. 3 was his first win over a Top 3 player in almost a year, since beating a No. 1-ranked Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon last year, and he's now through to his first final in 15 months, since Indian Wells last year.

After cruising through a tie-break to close out the first set, it looked like Medvedev was headed for a straight-set win as he grabbed an early break in the second set and found himself serving 2-0, 30-15.

After getting broken back, Medvedev even had three match points late in the second set with Zverev serving at 5-6—one at 30-40, then two more at ad-out—but the German saved them all, held and rolled through the tie-break to even the match up at a set apiece.

Medvedev again went up an early break in the third set at 2-1, then saved four break points in the next game to hold for 3-1, and the two held from there until it was all over after two hours and 59 minutes.

"I could have done much better when I had the break in the second set," Medvedev said afterwards in his on-court interview. "It's normal, the same thing also happened in the third set—whenever I had the break, he suddenly started returning better, playing better.

"What I'm happy about today is that I managed to stay more composed in the third set, to save those break points."

The former world No. 1 is now through to the 39th tour-level final of his career, going 20-18 in the first 38 of those finals.

Awaiting Medvedev in the final will be another Alexander, Alexander Bublik, who also survived a close contest in his semifinal, battling back to defeat Karen Khachanov, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

Bublik was two points from losing at 5-all in the second set tie-break, and after squeaking that one out, faced double break point in his first service game of the third set—but he ended up holding, breaking midway through the third and eventually serving it out.

The Kazakh is now into his 12th career final, going 4-7 in his first 11. He'll be looking for the equal-biggest title of his career on Sunday, having won here in Halle—an ATP 500 event—two years ago.

Medvedev is 6-0 against Bublik, but they've never played on grass.