ATP Finals London: Daniil Medvedev in search of the momentum
It was in November 2016 that newly-crowned top-100 player Daniil Medvedev was allowed to sit in the main interview room at the London O2 Arena for the first time. The occasion was then the award for the winner of the "Young Guns on the Road Contest" sponsor.
by Florian Heer
last edit: Nov 11, 2019, 08:03 pm
By Florian Heer from London
There was $ 50,000 in prize money for the 20-year-old Russian, who outperformed his then rivals Mitchell Krueger, Omar Jarsika and Gregoire Barrere in this particular competition. Not only the results on the pitch, but also the appearance of the players in the various social media channels flowed into the evaluation.
Three years later, Medvedev is back at the ATP finals, but with the small but subtle difference of being one of the eight best players of the year. His rise to number four in the world rankings is one of the big stories of the season. Four tournament victories, including two ATP Masters titles, the Russian could get hold of in 2019. In a few weeks of this late summer or fall, Medvedev hurried from Finale to Finale, appearing almost invincible. The crowning achievement was his first Grand Slam final at the US Open.
Winning streak against Tsitsipas ripped
Ironically, against Stefanos Tsitsipas there was now a defeat at his London debut. 6: 7 (5) and 4: 6 after one hour and 42 minutes was the balance sheet from the point of view of the Muscovite. It could Medvedev in all five previous duels against the Greeks to leave the place as the winner.
"I miss a little energy today," Medvedev revealed on his return to the press conference podium. "I do not mean the physical. Mental today was missing something. During my training sessions, I had already noticed that I had lost some of my playing power. In that sense, I can be satisfied with my match performance today. "
In search of the momentum
Medvedev took a break after the Asian swing in mid-October and returned to the Masters tournament in Paris-Bercy back to the court, where he was defeated in the first round to the Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.
"I knew that my body needed recovery. So I decided to take a break so as not to hurt myself. We can not play 40 tournaments in a year, "said the 23-year-old Russian.
"It's more mental, though. I've lost a bit of momentum, but I'll try everything to get it back and I'm confident I'll succeed. The only question is whether this will already be the case at this tournament. "
Victory number 60 in the sights
In London, Medvedev can still celebrate his 60th match win of the year. However, the chances of achieving this have fallen, according to statistics. Against Rafael Nadal he pulled in the two previous meetings of the two the short straw, and also against Alexander Zverev is the balance of the Russians negative. At the last meeting with the German number 1 in the final of the Shanghai Masters, however, he could triumph smoothly in two sets.