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ROLEX SHANGHAI MASTERS

October 11, 2019

Daniil Medvedev

Shanghai, China

D. MEDVEDEV/F. Fognini

6-3, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. The general sentiment in tennis and Fabio also said that you are the most dangerous player that he can possibly play against. Is that an assessment you agree with?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I mean, to be honest with you, I don't want to agree or disagree. It's his statement, and it just makes me pleased. But if some top players like Fabio can say this about me, shows that I'm on the good way, I'm playing good, and it's not easy to play against me.

Surely, yeah, that's what I tried to show today on the match and it worked out.

Q. Tennis is such an up-and-down sport. It is so hard to play your best every single week. Do you ever worry about a drop in form? Or do you feel like the way you're playing now is the new normal for you?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, of course I worry in a good way that I know I need to keep focus. I know I need to keep working every day hard in order not to lose this level.

It has been working well for me, but for example, talking about yesterday, I don't think I played good but managed to win, managed to go through a really tough match where I saved I think five set points in the first set.

Even, you know, not talking about weeks, it can be in one match that you drop level and then you bring it up. So for sure I'm aware of this, and I'm going to try to do my best to never let it down.

Q. When you came to Shanghai last year, your rank out of 20. Now you're world No. 4. Do you sometimes ask yourself, See what I have done? How did I do it? Do you surprise yourself?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, it's actually people around me who try to tell me this, in a good way that, Come on, Daniil, look at yourself. You have done a great job.

Because me, I'm too much -- not too much. I'm into like improving every day, and I think that's how you can reach the top. Because even being here, I could sit down, relax, and say, Yeah, okay, maybe I don't have any points to defend till next summer so I can be relaxed.

No, I want to be better player. I want to play better every day. That's why I kind of don't have time to look back and only looking forward and staying in the present.

Q. I may have misheard, but did I see you -- you said sorry to Fabio at the net at the end? Something like, Sorry, I played really well, or something like that? Why did you apologize, if you did?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I don't think I said sorry. If I did, it was a mistake (smiling). I don't think I said sorry, but I said him, I actually wanted to say that I was serving probably the best match of the season. I mean, my serve today, I don't know what happened. I was just crushing it.

And finally, I said just that it was my best match of the season which maybe is not true. But that's what I said.

Q. Looks like Novak but it could be Stefanos. But if you could kind of look at that pairing for semis?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I think they are still playing. In the second it was, like, 5-All. Not sure. But, I mean, Novak is one of the greatest players of all time, so never easy to play him.

But always, you know, a pleasure in a good way to play the big three, I mean, when they are still, I should say, I think at their top level. Never easy but always interesting.

Stefanos, even though I won all of the matches, they were all really tight. He's improving also every week. He's still so young. I mean, he has so many -- he has even, let's say, two years of more improving than me, talking about age. So let's see who wins first.

Q. You have a very unique way to hit your forehand. Of course people now think is one of the best forehands on tour, but I'm wondering when you were a kid, when you played juniors, do you have some people doubted and criticizing and say that you will never make a pro with that forehand?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I do think that there were such people, but usually they don't say it to me. They would say it behind my back, which is normal (smiling).

But I should say, yeah, I always had coaches, a coach, around me, not talking about Gilles but before, it was from 6 to 10 it was one woman in Russia who taught me to fight like crazy.

Actually, her Golden Rule was "The one who wins the match is the one who made more balls over the net," which is easy to understand.

And then I had one more Russian coach -- two more, actually, Russian coaches who were staying with me kind of from 10 till 18. So I always listen to my team around me. If they would tell me -- for example, I changed my forehand a little bit when I started working with these two coaches, because they said that they think my forehand was not good.

So if, for example, tomorrow my coach tells me we need to change something completely, I would definitely think about it. But if somebody not from my team, I would just say, Okay, it's your opinion.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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