Confidence is king, and Daniil Medvedev has plenty of it.
The fourth seed is into the semi-finals of the Australian Open, where he will play fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas for a spot in the championship match. Nobody on Tour has more momentum than the inimitable Russian, whose tricky game has stymied all opponents across the net in recent months.
Entering last year’s Rolex Paris Masters, Medvedev held an 18-10 record on the 2020 season. Since then, he has won 19 consecutive matches, and is now two victories away from lifting his first Grand Slam trophy. Former World No. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov is not surprised.
“I always said he’s the kind of player where the more matches he plays, the better he gets. What‘s happening right now, it’s a logical thing because he played a lot of matches in the fall last year and luckily he's won a few tournaments,” Kafelnikov said. “That gives him a lot of confidence and we all know how confidence can play a huge factor for any top-level player.”
What’s been most impressive about Medvedev’s run is that he has consistently faced some of the toughest opponents on the ATP Tour. Eleven of his 19 wins have come against Top 10 opponents. The 25-year-old captured the biggest trophy of his career at the Nitto ATP Finals — where he beat the top three players in the FedEx ATP Rankings — and led Russia to glory in the ATP Cup, where he faced the No. 1 player from opposing countries.
“Confidence is an important factor, especially at the level where a few points can make the difference,” Kafelnikov said. “That’s where the difference is for Medvedev at the moment against the top players.”
It’s not just been that Medvedev has been winning, it’s how he’s been doing so. During this stretch, the Russian has won seven of his 11 matches against Top 10 players in straight sets.
“The best feeling is when you win matches, so the more you win, the more you win in a row, the more it's better as a feeling,” Medvedev said. “Some matches I could say, 'I could do this better, this better.' But for me the momentum, the confidence means a big part.
“I think you can see that once I lose it, I start to make more unforced errors and that's where my game can be a little weaker.”
The million-dollar question: How has Medvedev found such success against the best players in the world so consistently?
“Every player at every level has at least one opponent whose style gives them fits,” former World No. 4 Brad Gilbert wrote in his book Winning Ugly.
Medvedev has been that player for all his opponents lately. The Russian blends impenetrable defence with opportunistic offence to thrive regardless of the circumstances. Players are forced to pick their poison: Attack too aggressively against someone who gets nearly ever ball back, and risk going for too much, or settle into rallies and allow the Russian to hit through the court with his flat, penetrating groundstrokes. Neither option is enticing.
Andrey Rublev led the ATP Tour with five titles last season and was 8-0 this year entering his quarter-final against Medvedev Wednesday, and yet the seventh seed was left throwing his hands up in frustration as he struggled to find solutions against his ATP Cup teammate. Rublev, like many others, was unable to solve the Medvedev puzzle.
“You need to be focussed 100 per cent every point, because as soon as you relax, then he will use this opportunity,” Rublev said. “It's always important... to still try to bring all the balls back, because then for him, it's also not easy. I’m not the only one who's suffering, he's also suffering, because in the end for him it's tough to be always the one who needs to attack and then suddenly again to defend.”
It’s much harder than it looks, but Medvedev manages to transition seamlessly, which frustrates players even more. His next opponent, Tsitsipas, said after losing against Medvedev at the 2019 Rolex Shanghai Masters that “it’s boring” to play the Russian.
“He has a huge serve, and if you manage to get it back, it's just countless balls inside the court,” Tsitsipas said at the time. “[All] you can do is hit as hard as you can side to side, be accurate, and make him move. Otherwise you can just play it back to him and play it again and play it again. It just keeps coming back, keeps coming back.”
Over time, however, the Greek star has come to appreciate Medvedev’s unorthodox game style.
“[I] might have said in the past that he plays boring, but I don't really think he plays boring,” Tsitsipas said. “He just plays extremely smart and outplays you. He's somebody I really need to be careful with and just take my chances and press. That will be very important.”
Medvedev is as confident as ever. Will anyone be able to stop him at Melbourne Park, or will he ride his tidal wave of momentum to his maiden Grand Slam trophy?
“I’m really happy that I managed to keep this momentum going so far, and it feels great,” Medvedev said. “Hopefully I can continue it for at least two matches.”
from Tennis - ATP World Tour https://ift.tt/37reP8t
No comments:
Post a Comment