At Wimbledon, anything is possible for Medvedev
Despite a breakdown in confidence between the clay and grass season, Daniil Medvedev made this Wimbledon a priority. And he has no intention of stopping in the semi-finals.
Medvedev Wimbledon 2023 | Antoine Couvercelle / Panoramic
Among the things that make Daniil Medvedev a truly special player is the sine wave shape of his confidence. If he’s feeling strong, the Russian is nigh unbeatable, as his incredible first-term streak showed – four trophies including the Miami Masters 1000, 24 wins in 25 matches in February and March.
If he feels vulnerable, annoyance mixes with anxiety to make the former world number one eligible for the most stunning defeats. A perfect example is his season on clay: a title in Rome, despite less than optimal sensations, followed by a defeat in the first round of Roland-Garros – the world No 3 was in one of these periods where everything can turn one way, or the other.
Included in these emotional vicissitudes, whether he likes it or not, is Medvedev’s coach Gilles Cervara, a man who is very attentive to the irritabilities of his player.
Therefore Medvedev arrived with few certainties at SW19, where he had never been beyond the round of 16 before. But at least this one: Wimbledon was the appointed moment to become again in his own eyes a player at the height of his classification. “After my Australian Open 2022, I never really had a deep run in the Slams. Never was even in quarters. I want to change it because I feel like I belong to this later stages of this tournament.”
I feel like I belong to this later stages of this tournaments.
Daniil Medvedev on the Grand Slam tournaments
Since his defeat in the final in Melbourne in 2022, Medvedev has endured many frustrations: an round of 16 loss at Roland-Garros (Cilic), the same at the US Open (Kyrgios), a third round defeat in Melbourne (Korda), a first round shocker at Roland-Garros (Seyboth-Wild), his first opening-round defeat since Roland-Garros 2020.
The defeat in Paris gave rise to two desires in the Russian. First, that of recharging the batteries after four months of rare intensity. A father, it is now easier for him to take responsibility about the productivity of his time.
“Hopefully, I matured, because that what’s fatherhood is also for,” he said to Tennis Majors at Wimbledon. “I have a very important person to take care of. So, hopefully I matured and I can take more responsibility for my actions. I do think it happened.”
A big F1 fan, Medvedev also flew to Barcelona to follow the F1 Grand Prix while Djokovic and Alcaraz were still scrapping on clay. The second desire was to become a Grand Slam beast once again. After a week off, Medvedev spent a few hard days at the Mouratoglou Academy before devoting twenty-four days to grass-court tennis to arrive at Wimbledon confidently.
Two matches to feel better at Wimbledon
With two defeats in four matches at s’Hertogenbosch then Halle, the results didn’t demonstrate the level of commitment he was putting in.
“Before the tournament, I was not feeling well with my tennis,” he says. “First round (against wild-card Fery) I was not feeling well. Starting from the second round, it was only getting better and better.”
And better…
Two matches, at the All England Club, ended up confirming to Medvedev that his chances at Wimbledon were real. First a second round in two days against Adrian Mannarino, who had beaten him at s’Hertogebosch and had won four of their six duels on the circuit. Then a round of 16 against Martin Fucsovics, a good grass player, who pushed Medvedev before eventually giving way.
For the moment Medvedev compares his comfort level on grass between that of the red clay, which he continues to regard with skepticism, and hard courts, his natural playground – and proving ground.
“The results, it’s sure that on clay and the grass I play less good than on hard courts,” he says. “But I want to try to change it and try to be in the finals of slams playing the best players, even on these surfaces. That’s another chance for me this year.”
He continues, pointing out that his experience and match management skills can help him on grass at this stage of his career.
“The specificity of grass is that a mach can shift at any time. It’s a bit like on hard where sometimes a single bad service game can decide the fate of a set. There is no substitute for experience in controlling what happens on the grass.”
The words of a grass specialist
Asked about the keys to the game on grass in the first week, the Russian partly gave the keys to his semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz, who has the talent, and the grass court chops, to force him into difficult positions.
Alcaraz vs Medvedev: Chapter 3 🍿@carlosalcaraz | @DaniilMedwed #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/PNFZ3x3GhE
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) July 13, 2023
“Firstly – serve. You pay attention to the serve on every surface, but even more so on grass,” he explains. “You want to try to keep your serve on grass. Honestly, in a well-played match on grass, you shouldn’t lose your serve, we see the best players on grass do that. That’s the main aspect.
“Then, probably going to the net at the right moment is important – we can see a lot of good grass-court players rushing the net at the right time. That’s what even I try to do – even though that’s not completely my game, I try to do it more often on grass.
“Third thing would be the rhythm – it’s a natural surface, kind of like clay – the shot can be the same, but the bounce is not going to be, it depends on where the ball bounces. The rhythm is very important, to try to get that right.”
Alcaraz will be something of a supreme test for Medvedev, who was overtaken by the Spaniard’s speed and shot tolerance in the Indian Wells final.
“But the court was extremely slow,” observed Medvedev.
Wisely, he would prefer to reflect on his other “Alcaraz experience”: in 2021, he gave the young Spaniard no chance in their first head-to-head battle. It just so happens to have been set on the hallowed lawns of Wimbledon.
