WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN

August 26, 2020

Daniil Medvedev

Press Conference

R. BAUTISTA AGUT/D. Medvedev

1-6, 6-4, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. A tough one today. Could you just walk us through the match, how you thought things sort of turned around after that opportunity at the start of the second?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I was in control of the match, but Roberto was not playing his best tennis. I was playing quite good. At one moment it started changing a little bit. But still I had my chances, I mean, especially serving at 4-3 in the second.

My serve was not on top today, so that's where I could be better. But Roberto played some good points, and, you know, these matches are always tough, always tight. Even third set I had my chances. Didn't manage to take them, and Roberto took all the chances he had. So that's why he won.

He played quite good. Especially end of second and third set he played really good.

Q. Novak just said and Andy Murray said on Instagram that Roberto is one of the most underrated guys on tour. What makes him such a tough guy to beat?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Hey, he's really solid. He knows what he's doing on court. He knows how to win matches. He wins a lot of matches every year. So he knows his strengths, he knows his weaknesses, so he tries to play with it. You know, he's a smart guy on the court. I mean, he's a top player for years.

So for sure he's going to win many top guys. Sometimes he's going to lose also, because while he was still never, let's say, top 5 or maybe final of a slam or winning a slam, so there is something he's missing, but he can of course cause a lot of problems.

Q. What do you feel like your preparation has been like this week in terms of getting ready for the US Open, if you think you're in a good spot now? Is it an advantage you don't have to play two more matches with a Grand Slam best-of-five a couple days away? How are you feeling you have yourself set for the next couple of weeks now?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I'm quite happy with my level of tennis. I honestly thought it would be worse, so that's the good part.

Physically I don't feel at my best so far, but it's good that I had the chance to play three matches here and a tough one today, because even if today was tough physically, I'm going to not learn from it, but my muscles are going to learn from it. They are going to remember what it is to play these tough matches.

Best-of-five is not going to be easy but I'm going to try to do my best. Of course a lot of things depends on the draw, stuff like this. But if I show the tennis that I showed here, I think I have good chances to make good tournament.

Q. What do you think the physical challenge will be for the field next week? Masters event week before, not much prep before the matches? Could the best-of-five get sort of ugly?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I'm actually wondering, because every player is different. So there are, for sure, going to be players who's going to play a five-hour match and be ready to play even the next day without a day off, which is not the case for everybody.

So I'm actually really interested to see how that's going to be, and I do think that still a lot of players are going to have problems and we're going to see a lot of withdrawals, especially if it's going to be hot, because as I said before, after six months without competitive tennis to play out of five is tough.

Q. Do you think they could considered making it the best of three, given the unique circumstances this year?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I mean, I would be happy about it, but I don't think it was even the question, so there is no question.

Q. To play knowing that anyway your points are safe, does it make any difference in terms of competitiveness at the end of the match when you're probably down, you say -- of course you fight because you have been used to fight in all situations, but in the back of your mind, there is also this idea that, anyway, whatever happens is not making a big damage to your ranking?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, what is 100% coming here I knew that I'm almost sure to not win any points, but of course sure not to lose any.

After deciding to come here, I knew that no matter what, I'm going to fight for every match I play, so talking about today, I wanted to win. Even last game it was 40-15 for Roberto. I managed to come back, made a tough game. I think I had one breakpoint.

But I can say that I'm testing myself here, and of course I know that I'm kind of not playing for points, so I'm testing myself here where I am right now.

I am, of course with US Open the next week, just going to fight for every match, but I can tell you that today I fighted till the end, and I was actually not thinking one moment about the points or something like this.

Q. And your holidays during the COVID were good holidays in a way, or were you sort of homesick from playing tennis, happy to be with the family? Something more private, let's say, in a way.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Well, I can tell you that I'm kind of, let's call it like this, happy in my personal life, so no matter what happens, I'm usually not depressed.

So I just wanted to make the best out of it, the best for me of course. When it was a real lockdown, I tried not to go anywhere, so I stayed home for I think it was about two months and maybe one week or two weeks in France. Just stayed at home. Well, that was probably the toughest time. But it was the same for everybody.

Then as soon as the country started to reopen already, we went for some holiday, some time just in South of France and different small cities. Just enjoyed ourselves with my wife and did the things we liked.

So of course continuing to practice tennis. I can say that I'm happy with how it worked out.