MIAMI OPEN PRESENTED BY ITAú

March 29, 2022

Daniil Medvedev

Press Conference

D. MEDVEDEV/J. Brooksby

7-5, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: A tricky opponent, but what impressed you the most?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I think there was actually nothing new. I did know about Jenson. I think he's playing great tennis. He has the potential to be top player. Again, when I say "top," you never know -- No. 1, No. 10, 7, 5 in the world -- but he has the potential to be higher than he is right now.

Yeah, it's not easy. You need to win matches, need to win big tournaments, gain experience. But his strength is definitely, and that's the most important in tennis, put the ball in the right spot. In the beginning, that's what he was doing great. He was hitting corners, aggressive, some winners, not much I could do.

I knew that I just have to continue and there is a possibility that maybe he's not gonna play that amazing for all the match. And that's what happened. Yeah, that's the toughest part in tennis, you know.

If you want to win Grand Slams or stuff like this against the best players in the world, you need to continue playing amazing sometimes for all the match, so today I managed to keep my consistency just enough to beat him.

THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Jenson is a very unusual player. I have seen people compare him to you. Do you see any similarities between you and him? What makes his game more unusual?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I think there are some similarities, like he likes to hit the ball flat. I feel like he has this ability, being big, I mean, really good runner, we all know, but also being in the tough positions, so many times you feel like, okay, maybe I have to go to the net or my next shot is going to be easy because I put him in trouble. Then from these strange positions, he gives you a tough ball to play. That's, I think, yeah, that's really high level of tennis, because, yeah, that's when you are the most in trouble.

I think his game is still different from mine, especially like the two-hand slice, dropshots. He actually didn't do one two-handed dropshot against me today. I was surprised, because when we practiced he did quite a few (smiling).

But, yeah, I would compare him more to Florian Mayer, because yeah, I actually played once against Florian, and he destroyed me 2 and 1 in the final, in my first, or second final of challenger. No, it was my first final of challenger.

Yeah, I think their game is really similar. What else can I say? No, a great player with a lot of potential, yeah, but then you never know if he's going to reach it.

Q. You will play to be No. 1 for the next match. How will you approach this match, with extra pressure, extra motivation? What will be in your mind?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: At this moment, I don't feel any pressure. A lot of extra motivation to try to make it. You know, it's a great thing to try. To be in the semifinals, I knew before the tournament that I have to be there if I want to be No. 1.

It's great that I have this chance. Only one match left. Of course maybe during the match, pressure can start to build up, depending how the match is going, what's the score. I mean, yeah, if you have 5-0, 40-Love, maybe less pressure. If it's 6-5 in the tiebreak in the third set there is a little bit more.

But at this moment it's just a lot of extra motivation to try to make this one more step.

Q. We have this sort of idea, reputation of American men's tennis that it's guys with big serves and big forehands and not very good backhands maybe relatively, and Jenson is not like that really at all. Does that strike you too? Do you think there is a typical American player that you have faced in your career and that maybe that's changing?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I think, you know, I never thought about this, but it's true that -- I mean, it's also depends I think on who you watch when you're young. So, for example, I remember we were all watching Marat and his backhand. His forehand was really good too, but his backhand I think was big weapon, especially one, the jumping backhand.

I think if you do see me, Andrey, even Aslan and Karen, we love to do the jumping backhand. Of course we don't do it every time, because sometimes you lose position because of it, but if you ask us to do it on practice, we'll know how to do it, because when we were like eight years old, the only thing we would do on the tennis court is do jumping backhands.

Yeah, of course when you have Andy Roddick winning US Open crashing serves and going for the forehand every time he can, of course these young guys are going to watch it and try to do the same.

Jenson definitely doesn't do the same, but, you know, also, I mean, I don't think I'm a typical Russian-style tennis player. But, yeah, when I think about Frances, maybe Tommy Paul, even Taylor, he has a great backhand, but still kind of his strength is serve and going for the forehand. Yeah, there are these similarities, for sure.

Q. Once Naomi Osaka she brought up about and she talked about you, she said you seemed quite unique and that she found you quite interesting. So I was wondering if you have any thoughts or opinion of her, you know, what she has done, what kind of like personality she is?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I don't know her close as a person, so it would be tough for me to talk about it. I mean, I don't like to talk about people, because what I see is going to be articles in the media.

Sometimes when I cross her, which is, you know, you don't know a person close enough. So I can only talk mostly about her tennis career, which is amazing.

She won a lot of Grand Slams, she's one of the best in the world. Every time she plays, I think stadiums are close to be packed or packed. She's a superstar, a lot of contracts, a lot of attention, which is sometimes tough for her, as we see.

But I think, yeah, she seems like a very strong person in her own way and definitely strong tennis player. A lot of respect to her for what she's doing.