ROLEX PARIS MASTERS

November 6, 2021

Daniil Medvedev

Press Conference

D. MEDVEDEV/A. Zverev

6-2, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English.

Q. (Broken audio.)

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Completely, completely competitive. When you play -- I wanted to say when you play final of a 1000 but actually, no, doesn't matter. We all know who Novak is, what are his goals in tennis.

I also try to follow the best like him, Roger, and Rafa. So every time I'm on court, to be honest, even in exhibition, unless it's really an exhibition where you don't have to win, which is not the case many times, I want to win.

So, for example, I remember I played one time exhibition in Saudi Arabia where there were money on the line, of course no points, but it was like a normal tournament where if you are the winner you would get more than first round. Yeah, I won the tournament, I was really happy.

Yeah, that's what I try to do all the time. I like to win no matter if I'm playing PlayStation or tennis. Of course when we are going to play tomorrow it's definitely going to be a competitive match where both of us will really want to win.

Q. What about today's match? How do you think it went? Obviously that scoreline looked very convincing. Would you feel you need to change anything, or are you totally satisfied?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: When you win 6-2, 6-2, definitely don't need to change anything. Of course the score doesn't reflect exactly what happened on the court. At 2-1, 15-40, I was 2-1, 15-40 down. Sometimes in tennis it's a matter of put one ball on the line, one winner on the line, it's enough to get you a break and maybe gain some confidence. In the beginning of the match it's really important.

So I think the crucial point of the match was this hold and the break after straightaway, because that's when I gained some confidence. I started to read his game a little bit better, to, yeah, to see what I need to do to try to win the point.

That's what I tried to use throughout the match. Today it worked pretty well. But, yeah, we had a lot of matches with Sascha, and definitely not every match is going to be like this.

Q. You and Novak have gone head to head quite a bit. The results are almost evenly split. Do previous matches have any bearing, considering the last time you played was only two months ago?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I think tactically. Head to head at this level it's not that important anymore unless it's like 8-0 or 10-0. That's when, okay, yeah, maybe he has the edge and he likes something about my game.

When it's kind of even, and even this year we are 1-All in head to head, both in final of slams, it's more these matches, every match help you tactically and mentally. So for example, Australian Open final helped me a lot to prepare better for US Open.

Of course winning US Open would give me maybe some tactical things I want to try to repeat or use against Novak. At the same time, again, we all know who Novak is. If he would not adapt to circumstances, he would not be where he is now. So he's definitely going to try to change something, which I cannot know what it is he's going to try to do so I'm going to try to think about this. And, yeah, that's the game of tennis sometimes.

I think, yeah, against some players you feel like maybe you won few months ago and you can gain confidence from this. Against Novak you know that actually he is going to want to beat you even more when you beat him.

Let's see how it goes tomorrow.

Q. He was saying that the two of y'all had a pretty competitive practice session not that long ago just before the Rolex Paris Masters. But he didn't say who won that practice session.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I won't say it also, because -- I was talking about this before the tournament. I was wondering if somebody would ask me what the score was. I don't want to say, because I feel like no matter who won this set, as he said the same, it doesn't matter.

So what is true we had a pretty competitive set, it was a high level of tennis. I'm going to say like this, it was decided on the tiebreak, but I'm not going to say who won.

THE MODERATOR: Questions in French.

Q. Congrats on your win. On court you said that you liked to play Novak. Why?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: When I was young I would watch him on TV. I remember the first encounter at Davis Cup. It was magical. I didn't know what I was about to do in my career.

There were high expectations, but you never know what you're gonna do. So I thought I have to seize the moment and enjoy and do everything to beat him. I had actually taken one set, and I was 3-0 up at one point.

There were 5,000 people in the stadium cheering him up. There were only two or three supporting me. That was actually funny. Behind every match that we played, some he won; some I won. Most of the time he was No. 1 when I played him.

So it's always a wide range of emotions when I play him. It's a challenge. As I was asked before the tournament, I was asked, How do you anticipate a match with Novak? I said, Well, we will see. If we manage to be in finals together, that means that we will have played well, the two of us.

And this is the case, and I'm delighted to play him tomorrow.