ATP CUP

February 3, 2021

Daniil Medvedev

Andrey Rublev

Team Russia

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: You're through to the semifinals. Second team. You haven't dropped a set in singles this week. How happy are you so far?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I think we are both really happy, because as I said yesterday, you know, for sure we are both happy with our wins. Just for our confidence and stuff like this, but the most important in this tournament is to win the match as a team.

So we are happy that we both helped our team to go through to the semis.

ANDREY RUBLEV: I don't think there is many more things to say. Daniil said basically everything. Is true we are really happy, happy with our performance. I think Daniil as well, he beat two great players, one of them top 10, one of them is legend, so -- and me, as well, I played two good matches, I showed good levels.

We'll see what's gonna happen. We have one day off so we are gonna practice tomorrow, and then I hope we're gonna be ready to compete against Germany or Serbia.

Q. A question for Daniil. Yesterday in on-court interview you said that you felt sorry for Kei because he had to go through two weeks hard quarantine. Do you think that in the second set he raised his level of play?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, for sure. And this is normal. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was like his first match in year and a half or something like this.

ANDREY RUBLEV: He was playing...

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: After US Open?

ANDREY RUBLEV: Yes.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Anyway, so we didn't play the same tournament probably.

He didn't play a lot of matches lately, that's for sure. And to come here and be 14 days in the room, no matter even if you do 10 hours a day, try to, I don't know, run, work out or something, it's tough. In the first set he could feel it. He was missing everything.

He definitely raised his level in the second set, started to mix up the game. And it's normal, because every minute that he gonna have on the court he's gonna raise his level now. And then, at some moment it's going to stop.

Yeah, I'm happy that I managed to go through even he was playing better in the second set.

Q. You were moving good. What do you think the key of today's win against Kei?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I think, yeah, everything, as you say, I was serving good, that's for sure, helped me in the tough moments. And I do think that because he didn't have enough practice this important key moments, it's just that he missed some balls, I put them in, and that was the key today. Tennis is always a matter of few points, not so much.