Mumbai: Before walking out on Saturday for his first match of this US Open at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in the night session, a stage that took down the 2022 and 2023 men’s singles champions in the previous two evenings, Daniil Medvedev was asked about the upsets that shook the season-ending Slam.
The 2021 winner reckoned that upsets are sometimes good because it serves a reminder of the inherent nature of tennis — that any player can beat anyone on a given day.
The world No.5 would know too well, having gone without a single win on the US hard-court swing this year after early defeats to players ranked outside the top 30.
The Russian appeared all at sea coming into New York, but has so far held his own amid the wave of shocks at the US Open. Medvedev swept past Flavio Cobolli, the Italian 31st seed flaunting an explosive game, with aplomb in a 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 victory that took him into the Round of 16 as the only former champion still around in the men’s draw.
From a guy who was bereft of rhythm from the Paris Olympics, Medvedev is taking steady momentum into the second week. He’s now got there for six straight years at Flushing Meadows, a creditable string of consistency in the unpredictable season-ending Slam where he’s been the champion, made two finals (including last year) and another semi-final in that period.
Medvedev and the US Open is a strange love story. Saturday marked the five-year anniversary of the Russian’s unforgettable post-match interview that continues to light up social media; those “I won because of you” remarks to the booing crowd laced with sarcasm and the mocking celebratory poses lifting both his arms. Over the years, the New York crowd has continued to rile him up at times while Medvedev continues to take them on. But it’s also in New York where the Russian plays some of his best tennis and can point to his most impressive results among all Slams.
Perhaps Medvedev needed the New York vibe, and its faster hard courts, to feel more like himself on court again. Because for a large part of this season, he hasn’t. The former world No.1 did make the final of the Australian Open and semi-final at Wimbledon — to go with early exits at Roland Garros for the French Open and the Olympics — but has otherwise had a largely sub-par season by his standard. Medvedev hasn’t won a title in 2024 so far, a barren run that stretches all the way back from May last year, by when he’d won five titles in the season already.
Medvedev has lost two big finals this year to Jannik Sinner (Australian Open) and Carlos Alcaraz (Indian Wells), but some of his other and more recent defeats have come out of nowhere — notably against Jiri Lehecka (ranked 35) in Cincinnati Round of 32 and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (42) in Montreal Round of 32 on hard courts. The self-proclaimed hard-court specialist said he is in the process of trying to bring in new weapons — “new shots, new combinations” — to his game. And while he does that in practice, replicating it during matches can still pose some questions in his mind.
“I know I have my style of play, which brings me a lot of wins on hard courts, and you’re always a little bit hesitant, of where do you bring these new things you worked on practice,” Medvedev said in New York. “So yeah, I’m trying to learn new things and trying to mix it up. Balance is very important.”
What is also important to Medvedev is his serve, which generally defines how lethal he can be in a particular match, especially on hard courts. Against Cobolli — his sudden injection of pace behind his forehand groundstrokes left Medvedev a bit stunned in the opening exchanges of their contest — it remained right up there.
Medvedev won a high 81 percent points behind his first serves, which were often big and brutal on the key points and games. A measure of his confidence behind his serve, and inside his mind, on the night came when he was break point down in the second set. Medvedev pulled out a serve-and-volley winner, a rare use of the craft by him. The three times he was broken by the Italian, the Russian broke right back.
Medvedev is back to feeling good in New York. But such is the nature of the stacked draws that he has top-ranked Sinner in his half, and is likely to run into him in the quarter-finals. Before that though, Portugal’s 34th-ranked Nuno Borges looms. And going by what’s been happening in the first week of this US Open, looking too far ahead can be risky.
“I said it before the match that for me upsets don’t really matter. The only thing (is that when) the conditions are a bit tricky, the favourites maybe have less margin than the other guys,” Medvedev said after beating Cobolli. “If I play good tennis, I can win the whole thing. If I don’t play good, I can lose against anyone.”
