On Saturday night, tennis fans will get to witness an exciting showdown between world No. 12 Cameron Norrie and world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in the Los Cabos Open final. Norrie, who earned a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win over world No. 9 Felix Auger-Aliassime in the semifinals, is the defending champion at this event. The Brit has also been fortunate not to face anybody of Medvedev’s caliber in this tournament between this year and last year. He’ll really need to level up in order to take home back-to-back trophies in Mexico. And all things considered, we’re skeptical about his chances.
While Norrie has already done a lot to prove that this is an event that perfectly suits his strengths, there just isn’t a whole lot that the lefty can do at a higher level than Medvedev. Norrie's best asset in this particular match-up is his high on-court IQ, which played a big part in allowing him to finally solve the Auger-Aliassime puzzle. (Which we predicted.) Prior to last night’s victory, Norrie had lost all four of his previous encounters with the 21-year-old. But Medvedev is better than Auger-Aliassime across the board, and the way he moves for a guy his size can be especially demoralizing.