“Last year, I was not strong enough” – Medvedev hopes to flip script at 2023 Nitto ATP Finals

Daniil Medvedev has tasted bitter defeats and sweet victories at the ATP Finals. Ahead of his fifth career appearance at the tour’s prestigious season-ending championships the Russian hopes to flip the script on a bizarre run of bad luck in 2022 that saw him lose all three round robin matches in a third-set tiebreak.

In two of them he even served for the win in the final set.

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Medvedev entered last year’s ATP Finals having won nine of his last ten at the event, including a run to the title in 2020, and a runner-up performance in 2022. But how quickly the circumstances changed. Three hard-luck losses later and the world No 3 enters Turin in 2023 riding a four-match losing streak at the event.

“Last year, I was not strong enough to manage to make it. This year, I’m going to try to be stronger,” Medvederv told Art Kapetanakis of the ATPTour.com.

Medvedev finished last season an 8-match losing streak against the ATP’s top-10, but he’s in a decidedly different place in 2023, after a magnificent season in which the wins piled up from the get-go.

Having been through both the ups and downs of the tricky round robin format in play at the ATP Finals, 27-year-old Medvedev will benefit from experience, and the wisdom that comes with it in a field that features two 20-year-olds and six players 26 or younger.

Having raised the trophy before, Medvedev knows what it takes.

“I feel definitely maybe a little bit less pressure, because before I won [the 2020 title], I lost three matches in a row,” he stated. “But the same time, tennis is such a… let’s call it a cyclic thing. Last year, I lost three matches, and three of them were really close in the decisive tie-break, I think two of them I was serving for the match. 

“So for sure this year coming there, I want to try to be better. And that’s exactly what happened a couple of years ago, when I managed to win it. So let’s hope it’s going to be the same story.”

Medvedev is in the midst of one of his best seasons to date. All that is missing is the Grand Slam title. He is 64-16 on the season with five titles, including two Masters 1000 crowns. He has also logged ten top 10 victories.

Next week in Turin, he will hope to put a bow on a stellar season by putting his best foot forward against the tour’s elite eight. He’s done it before, and he may just do it again…

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