US OPEN

September 3, 2021

Daniil Medvedev

Press Conference

D. MEDVEDEV/P. Andujar

6-0, 6-4, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Would you please give us your thoughts on the match and your level of play through a successful first week.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, great match. Always great to finish in straight sets. The more matches you can win in straight sets the better.

First set, yeah, I think Pablo didn't play his best level. I just took advantage, took the points I needed to take. Second and third set was much tighter, a lot of long rallies. He had breakpoints to come back at 5-All. I'm really happy that I managed to win the match without being at 5-All because that's the tough score already. Less than two hours. Only positives.

Again, happy with my level, happy with everything.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Next round is Dan Evans. How would you describe him as a player? What would you have to do against him?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I think it's tough to describe him with one word, but definitely very tricky. I would think very smart because he doesn't have one shot that is a weapon, and yet he's a top player for many years already.

I mean, the way he chooses the right moment to go to the net, to slice, to make a dropshot. I mean, his serve is not huge, but it's tough to return. Great player. I heard today in the locker room I think people saying, I love watching him play. Yeah, probably most of us like watching him play.

Yeah, I saw that he was two sets down. I watched a little bit the fifth set, what a tiebreak from him. Yeah, first time actually playing against him, so never easy. I want to show my best level. That's how I will have my chances to win.

Q. Would you say he's a scrappy player?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: What does mean 'scrappy'? I don't want to insult him when I don't know the word (laughter).

Q. He digs things out, looking for scraps.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that's his strength. I think, yeah, that's great that he has these strengths. Again, not sure if he would go out on the court and say I'm going to try hit 60 winners, 20 aces, win the match like this, I'm not sure he would succeed. Again, yet he manages to make unbelievable results, beating Novak this year in Monte-Carlo. Very tough opponent to play for anybody. That's his strengths, yeah.

Q. Since the pandemic started last year in the U.S., a lot of people have turned to tennis, new players. If I'm a new player, how do I beat people? What do I got to do here?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Tough for me to say. I've been playing tennis since I was six.

I would say first of all definitely you need practice. You can watch any video on YouTube. Same for anything in life. You can watch any video on YouTube. You can watch us play for 24 hours per day. When you will take the racquet in the hand, that's not going to be the same story.

Actually when I was very young, I once saw an amateur couldn't put one ball in the court, but his technique was exactly the same as Roger, I swear. Yeah, it's not only about this.

I think the most important is practice. When I say 'practice,' of course if you're just playing with your friends, I'm not talking to do five hours of gym and five hours on the tennis court with a tennis coach. Just go out and play, not once a month but once a week, and you're going to improve faster.

Q. Given your experiences here at the US Open in past years, how would you describe what you've been through this time and your thoughts about the way you're playing and feeling?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Great. Yeah, definitely. I had let's say two successful US Opens, if we're talking about success, finals, semifinals. Went quite far.

I think 2020 I was feeling even better than 2019. And right now also. But 2019 was different because it was my first Grand Slam where I broke through in the Grand Slams, so it was a different energy with the crowd and everything.

Here I'm more mature when I talk about tennis. Yeah, I'm feeling I can do big things. But I know for this I need to continue playing good. Again, the further you go, the tougher matches and tougher opponents you get. You just need to stay consistent and bring out your best every match.

Q. A couple years ago you had the crowd on Armstrong up in arms against you. A few days later the Ashe crowd thought you were just fabulous. If the tennis gods said to you that you have to give this guy Tsitsipas a tip or two to turn this around, what would you say?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: It's tough to answer because a lot of things going through my head because your question is a bit tricky, in a good way (smiling).

But I want to say we all need to go to change sometimes clothes. Somebody does it five minutes, six minutes, eight minutes. What happened with him and Murray happened. He got booed. At least next match don't go out for eight minutes, and that's what he did.

If you will remember 2019, I did a mistake. Well, I was not continuing to do it every other match, otherwise the crowd would not go behind me. That's the only advice I can give.

I mean, he has his own life. He probably won't listen to my advice.

Q. It's been 21 years since Marat Safin won at the US Open. You were quite young then. Do you remember anything from that and what it meant for you to have Marat to look up to?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I was four years old. I started playing tennis at six. I didn't follow tennis at all before. I was not from the family where starting from two years old I knew I was going to be a tennis player.

I do remember him winning Australian Open, though. Again, I cannot tell anything about US Open. It's just great that he has won it for the history.

I watch his photo every time I go to practice courts. Very young, very handsome, nice photo. But again, having somebody like Marat when I was young and starting to play tennis, I think I catched the moment where he was No. 1 in the world. That was amazing to watch.

Yeah, that's a big inspiration because you go out, you're seven years old, on the tennis court, all your friends and you, All right, I'm going to be like Marat Safin. Not everybody succeed, but it's better when you have somebody like this to look up from your country.

Q. I'd like to know, talking about numbers, if you think that it's more probable that Djokovic will win this slam, Grand Slam, after winning 23 matches and 64 sets, or if it's easier the numbers that Sports Illustrated gave, 70% of the players are not vaccinated will change?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Say it again. Sorry, say again the numbers. I couldn't follow it.

Q. Do you think it's more probable that Novak Djokovic will win the Grand Slam after having won already 23 slam matches and 64 sets, or the number that Sports Illustrated said belongs to the players who are not vaccinated would be 70% right now? Do you think it will change?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: First of all, I think the second one will change. But, again, I couldn't follow the numbers exactly. I think the second one about players vaccinated will change faster.

The thing is that I don't know where Sports Illustrated got this info from. I know a lot of players who are vaccinated, but they don't say it for different reasons. For example, talking about myself, I want to keep my medical, in Russia you call it a medical card, like medical book, I want to keep it private. Talking about anything, COVID, shoulder injury, wrist injury, ankle, whatever.

Like, anybody, I can have some problems with my health, and I don't want my opponents to know about it. So I would doubt that these numbers are right from them.