Medvedev says carefree attitude helped restore equilibrium after he “lost his mind” against Fritz

Sometimes it helps if you can just clear your mind, and tell yourself that whatever match you’re playing doesn’t matter too much. Win it, great; lose, never mind, move on.

It was essential for Daniil Medvedev after the Russian admitted that he’d lost his mind in his opening round-robin match, a straight-sets defeat by Taylor Fritz. A change in attitude and 48 hours later, he was a different proposition all together as he beat Alex de Minaur to keep alive his hopes of making the semi-finals at the ATP Finals in Turin.

It’s just a short-term fix, though, as Medvedev explained. “It’s impossible to do it throughout the whole year,” he said, of “not caring” about the result. “That’s not a good mentality to have throughout the whole year because at one moment you literally going to not care and lose because of it. It. That’s not an ideal way.

“When it’s end of the season, when you get complete meltdown against Fritz the match before, you lose your mind, because I did lose my mind, sometimes it’s a solution.

“I have either two or maybe more matches. Now it’s one. Whatever. I’ll go for it. Not even to have fun, but to not leave the match being, like, Oh, my God, I had a meltdown, what happened. Whatever happens happens. Just forget about it.”

Shutting out the noise

Medvedev put his hands in his ears after his win over De Minaur, symbolising his regaining of his equilibrium.

“For sure a lot of noise from myself to myself, from other people, from people around me, from people on social media or even in the stands. I decided today, OK, I have to sometimes every time learn again to block the noise. Some football players do this celebration. I think Memphis Depay was the first. I love this celebration in general. That’s why I decided to do it. Helped me today.

“I went into the match really, really trying to not care if I lose or win, if I play good or not. It worked out well for me today. Of course, unfortunate for Alex because I played 26 times better than the first match. That’s how tennis is sometimes. I hope he can play well in the last match. Maybe it’s going to be important for me.”

READY FOR SINNER

Medvedev’s last match is against world No 1 Jannik Sinner and though he’s lost six of their seven matches, the Russian is convinced he knows how to win, at least.

“I’s going to sound strange because I lost a lot of matches, but I feel like tactically I know what I have to do,” he said. “It’s just a problem the guy’s playing really good. You can do the best match possible tactically, tennis-wise, and you can still lose. That’s the reality. It’s not an easy reality.

“I’m ready, I go out, I play my tennis, I lose easy, it’s okay. I win easy, it’s perfect. I lose tough, it’s okay. I win tough, it’s perfect. I will see how it goes. I will try to prepare well tactically and I will just go for it.”

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