The 28-year-old talks about his rivals from the Nastase group: Sinner, Fritz and De Minaur
When Daniil Medvedev ended the 2018 season at No. 17 in the PIF ATP Rankings, then his career high, he would not have imagined continuing his rise and starting a streak of six consecutive years of qualifying for the top eight in the world for the Nittos ATP Finals.
Medvedev, who debuted in the tournament with a 0-3 record in 2019 before winning the title in 2020, is always a threat to anyone who wants to become the champion of champions in Turin. This year is no exception.
But this streak of six consecutive years among the best in the world seems to have surprised even him. “Probably if you had asked me in 2018, when I wasn’t there yet, and I said, ‘I’ll be there six times in a row,’ I would have said, ‘Wow! As? You have to win the Masters 1000, you have to do well in the Slams, and at that time I wasn’t doing that yet, even though I was on the rise. So I’m quite happy with that,” Medvedev told ATP Media. “Happy to be here and ready to take on the challenge.”
The 28-year-old from Moscow took a look back at his 2024 season, during which he posted a 45-19 record in terms of games won and games lost, describing it as an “up and down” year with “some positives and some negatives.”
After having won five titles in 2023, his personal best, Medvedev has very little time left to win his first trophy of the season. Finalist at the Australian Open and Indian Wells, he is included in the Ilie Nastase Group together with Jannik Sinner, Taylor Fritz and Alex de Minaur.
Medvedev and Fritz will kick off the singles tournament on Sunday, in what will be only their second head-to-head matchup as part of the Lexus ATP Head2Head. “With Taylor it’s kind of weird because we’ve both been in the top 10 for about three years and we started around the same time but we’ve only played each other once, which is crazy,” said Medvedev, who beat Fritz in Cincinnati in 2022.
After Medvedev won his first six matches against Sinner on the circuit, the Italian has made a remarkable comeback in terms of head-to-head matches: the score is now 7-7. Medvedev and Sinner have met five times this season (Sinner 4-1), three of them in Grand Slam tournaments.
“To beat [Jannik] you have to play a millimeter perfect match,” Medvedev said. “From start to finish, you have to be there, you have to tire him out physically and test him. If you can’t do it from the start, he takes control of the match and it’s difficult to break his rhythm. A very, very tough opponent, especially here in Italy.”
With a career record of 11-9 (games won-games lost) in the season finale, Medvedev will look to take revenge on Nitto ATP Finals debutant De Minaur, who beat the holder of 20 ATP titles at Roland Garros this year.
“I’ve known Alex for a long time. For me, he has always been a great player,” Medvedev said. “[Prima]perhaps he was a little too fluctuating, he could play extraordinary matches and others not so much. Or, even in the same match, he could score incredible points by running from one side of the pitch to the other, a highlight of the season. And then, during the same match, he could drop a little, make a few too many mistakes. This year it wasn’t like that.”
“I feel like that’s what made this season better than his previous ones — the consistent level he was able to express throughout the year and within every single game.”
