Spring smiles at Daniil Medvedev – Newspaper Kommersant No. 39 (7484) of 03/07/2023

Daniil Medvedev’s brilliant winning streak at tournaments in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai has allowed him to rise in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings from 11th to 6th place over the past three weeks. Apparently, Medvedev is about to enter the top five tennis players in the world and will have a real chance of a place in the top 3. True, in order to continue his ascent, he needs to perform more successfully than in previous years at major tournaments in Indian Wells (March 8-19) and Miami (March 22-April 4), and then on the clay series, which will end in Paris at Roland Garros.

Daniil Medvedev’s unbeaten streak of 14 matches in February and early March is not a record for him. At the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the Russian did not lose 20 matches in a row. Nevertheless, the three titles won within twenty days is a real breakthrough, which allows one to hope that in time Medvedev will be able to storm the top of the world rankings again. True, first he needs to enter at least the top three, and for this, as practice shows, he needs to have about 6,000 rating points on his account.

Medvedev currently has 3,775 points in his asset.

The fifth racket of the world American Taylor Fritz (3795 points), who in the next two weeks will have to defend 1000 championship points awarded for last year’s victory in the Masters 1000 category tournament in Indian Wells, is slightly behind, but lagging behind the current third racket of the world Stefanos Tsitsipas (5805 points) is quite significant.

However, there is hope that by mid-June the gap between the Greek and the Russian may be reduced or even disappear. Last year, Tsitsipas played relatively unsuccessfully in Indian Wells and at another major American spring tournament in Miami, but he performed great at the clay “masters” – he won in Monte Carlo, reached the final in Rome and the semi-final in Madrid, as a result of which until the end Roland Garros he will have to defend 2365 points. Even more serious task is facing last year’s finalist of Miami and Roland Garros, the fourth racket of the world Kasper Ruud. Of the 5560 points that the Norwegian has now, he has 2690 points for the same period. In turn, Medvedev was in the quarterfinals in Miami last spring and in the third round of Roland Garros, so he only needs to confirm 405 points.

The main problem now facing Medvedev is that it will be extremely difficult for him to keep his athletic form in America at the maximum.

Just because any tennis player who shows the maximum result for several weeks in a row, sooner or later there will be a decline. Of course, there is a chance that Medvedev will be able to level this negative factor with a positive one, that is, with the presence of fantastic self-confidence, which he spoke about in an interview with Kommersant. But what he will really be able to show in Indian Wells against the backdrop of inevitable acclimatization and jet lag is still unclear.

But on the experience of past years (see reference) it is known that March is not the best part of the season for Medvedev. Since 2017, when the Russian tennis leader began playing the full ATP calendar, he has managed to score a maximum of 225 points during this period, which is only 11% of the 2,000 points that can theoretically be earned by winning in Indian Wells and Miami. Even lower was Medvedev’s top percentage for his best clay season. Two years ago, he scored 460 points on clay. Recall that the champions of the three spring European “masters” and Roland Garros earn 5,000 points in total.

Of course, there are weighty arguments in favor of the fact that a lot can change this season. Even last year, having not had time to fully recover by the start of Roland Garros after a March operation for a hernia, Medvedev did not do too badly for himself in Paris, reaching the 1/8 finals. It is possible that in terms of movement, clay courts will remain problematic for him until the end of his career. But in general, the tactical pattern of the Russian game, based on the transition to a counterattack from an impenetrable defense, is one hundred percent suitable for the ground. So, if in the next four weeks Medvedev scores at least a few hundred points in Indian Wells and Miami, and then dramatically improves his clay results, at the beginning of the grass season, they can really start talking about him as a real contender for leadership in the world rankings.

Evgeny Fedyakov