Carlos Alcaraz has admitted that Daniil Medvedev deserved to progress to the Indian Wells final after the world number one’s 16-matchwinning streak came to an end. The Russian will meet Jannik Sinner in the final after he eased past Alexander Zverev.

Alcaraz came into the semi-final battle on the back of winning the Australian Open and winning 16 straight matches. But Medvedev’s strong start set him on his way to a 6-3 7-6 (7-3) victory in California.

Alcaraz will miss out on the opportunity to take on rival Sinner after the defeat. However, he was full of praise for Medvedev and his performance in the last four.

“Well, first of all, I just have to give credit to Daniil,” he said. “I think he just played an amazing match. Since the start of the match until the end of the, you know, the match, he was playing unreal, I gotta say.

“I have never seen, to be honest, playing Daniil like this. He deserves completely the win today. He deserves completely to get through and playing a final here. All I can say is just congratulations to him.”

Alcaraz went on to concede where it went wrong for him in the match. He said: “From my side, I just played a few games mostly in the first set that I just let go my serve game, and part of that, I just running all the time against him.

“So it was tough for me, but, you know, just proud to see that I just fought until the last ball.”

Medvedev, who beat defending champion Jack Draper in the quarter-finals, is currently enjoying his own winning streak of nine matches after winning last month’s Dubai Tennis Championship.

However, Sinner is aiming to become just the third man – after Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic – to capture all six ATP Masters 1000 hard-court titles by winning the final.