On Monday Danil Medvevdev the top seed at ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament took the time to speak to media on media day before he started his tournament.
He started by answering a question on his current hot streak winning 20 matches and making the final of the Australian Open.
“It’s a great achievement, it’s great to know this number, it’s all together for sure some confidence when you win tournament, won three in a row and one of them was a team competition of course, when you get the confidence going even in the tight moments, for sure the tough work I have been putting in practice through last 2-3 years is paying off and I feel on the court I can do many good things”.
The world number three also touched on the Australian Open final and answered if he felt he could do anything differently.
“I for sure thought about it a little bit, actually more discussed with my coach and my team but first of all Novak played really good, it’s that type of match where you get off the court and you feel like you didn’t play well but there is a reason because there is no reason that I wouldn’t play well because I just won 20 matches before playing well so there is no reason technically why I won’t play well, he did everything good, he was playing good, I couldn’t find my stance on the court but I think if we played again I would do things differently in terms of tactics during the game, that’s tennis, it’s experience but this match he won because he was a better player”.
Medvedev has a chance to reach the world number two ranking with a good week in Rotterdam and spoke about if there is any added pressure breaking up the top 4 for the first time since 2005.
“Ya for sure it’s a bit of pressure, that’s part of a tennis career or tennis life to have some pressure and different circumstances but for sure I would say that the most pressure would be starting from quarters or semis because first or second round is still kinda far to look ahead and getting ready for my first round and not looking ahead but for sure when it comes closer it will stay in my mind and I’m just going to try to do it”.
The number one seed this week was able to give me his thoughts on the resurgence of Russian tennis with Russia winning the ATP Cup, him making the final, Aslan Karatsev making his first-ever grand slam quarterfinal as well as Andrey Rublev making it to the final 8 as well in Australia.
” I think it’s great, I think the popularity of tennis in Russia is growing big time and that’s what we are trying to do and I can think we can do this long time and try to make tennis popular in Russia, I think that’s what’s going on right now, everyone started watching more tennis, everyone is starting to post more pictures of them playing tennis, I’m really happy for it , I’m really for Andrey making it last year, you know making the quarters of Australia is still a very good result, Karatsev made something unbelievable, he’s in the history books right now maybe for a long time and hopefully he can continue his run throughout the season and let’s see how it goes“.
Finally, he spoke about the draw this week and his first match against Dusan Lajovic.
“The draw is really strong and for a 500 event it is one of the strongest draws ever and still some people retired so it could be stronger especially of course with Rafa and we have six top 10 guys I think which is unbelievable and about Lajovic the courts are really slow here, the balls are slow and probably the conditions he will like, I need to prepare my game to have few days of practice left and of course it’s indoor hard so the serve will be important, the serve and return and expecting a tough match vs Dusan”.
