The difficult moment, which had lasted for about a year, has been largely overcome. Daniil Medvedev has returned to demonstrate recently that he is a great champion and one of the strongest tennis players on the ATP circuit.
After the triumph at the Miami Open, thanks to the victory in the final against the Italian Jannik Sinner, coach Gilles Cervara revealed in an interview with the ATP tour what changed in his athlete’s mentality. He told: “Everything changed just before Rotterdam.
I remember that the three days before the debut on the pitch in Holland were very tough. I heard it after the Australian Open, during two weeks of training, but then a few days before the first round in Rotterdam I saw Daniil quite nervous, quite insecure.
But also that he knew how to play good tennis. My job was to find a way to get him to find the right button inside him, so that he trains well and wins sets during workouts. That’s what happened.” Then he added: “Even though I wasn’t ready to realize that he was playing well at the time, I felt like I hit something.
The first round against Davidovich was crucial to win, even if he was in trouble. And then, day after day, it got better and also the victory against Auger-aliasse was another important step to ignite.”
Cervara expresses himself on Medvedev’s particular game
Cervara also explained: “It’s hard to say what people don’t understand about Daniil and his game.
Hard to say because I’m not in front of him to say. But sometimes his blows have power, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you expect something, but he goes the other way. Sometimes he expects a deep ball and misses without consistency.
It’s like a wall and that’s the most important thing. Every ball comes back and he makes no mistake. He is almost able to find a solution to any problem. He is an amazing fighter. He really always wants to win, so he doesn’t concede anything to the opponent and pushes him to a level that sometimes, I’m not talking about the best players because they are used to it, many are not used to playing in every rally.”
