LAVER CUP

September 21, 2024

Daniil Medvedev

Thomas Enqvist

Team Europe

Press Conference

F. TIAFOE/D. Medvedev

3-6, 6-4, 10-5

Team Europe - 2

Team World - 4

THE MODERATOR: Daniil, tough loss in the tiebreak against Frances. Please let us know any of your thoughts about the game.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Tough match. I felt like I didn't play so well. I said to Frances after the match, he should play like this all the time. He played well.

Maybe sometimes you go out of the match and you don't see what actually happened, so I need to ask my coach after, to maybe ask Thomas. My feeling was that I didn't play bad. I tried to mix it up, tried to, like, look for solutions. He just played better than me, and I don't have much regrets, to be honest.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Was there anything that Thomas told you or that Bjorn said that gave you motivation or...

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, everyone was telling me a lot of things, different -- I mean, because we are all top players, it's impossible to say, like, okay, change your forehand motion or something. But for sure everyone tried to help, some small details.

Yeah, to be honest, he made better shots at important moments. That's what I would say. For me, it's not even more about, like, tactics or something like this. Both played pretty well. He, yeah, played for sure the tiebreaker better. One set I played a bit better, second set he played a bit better, and we're in the tiebreak where a few points count, and he made these points much better.

Q. You mentioned about your coaches, and we have seen quite a lot of changes of coaches on the women's side, in particular. I wondered with you the sort of things you look for in a coach, and yeah, what the most important things are for you in that relationship.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Well, for me, it's tough to say what I look for in general, like, in a new coach, because I have worked with Gilles since probably around five, six years, like full-time, and I know him since ten years. I like working with him.

Yeah, for me, what I look for is I would say understanding each other, because, you know, you can change a lot of coaches and maybe some of them will bring you new things that will work. But I also am not someone who wants to constantly change and look for something new, look for something new.

So I try to do it steadily. Now I took Gilles Simon to try to learn something new. So yeah, the most I look for is understanding each other, respecting each other and, and stuff like this.

Q. Daniil, when you're sitting on the bench and there are five guys coming up around you, all jammering in your ear, is it more uplifting or is it more distracting?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, I think me, I'm someone who it can distract sometimes. I'm, like, very into myself during the matches, I don't need coaching, et cetera.

But here now it was honestly good energy, and I think some of the things they said were, like, good things and I tried to do it. Just didn't work out.

But actually, yeah, if I have one more chance, I will be looking forward for more advices if I need to. It was actually they were, like, when I was winning, they were not going to too much. As soon as I started to get tough, they were going a bit more. Felt like good coaching.

Q. What was the best piece of advice?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Best one? Oh, what was it?

Q. And from whom?

VICE CAPTAIN THOMAS ENQVIST: My advice. (Laughter.)

A. I would say from Grigor, first serve on the tiebreak, I said where do I go? He said wide, and it worked. Let's go with this one (smiling).

Q. You already talked about the fact how special it is that rivals become teammates here, but since it's no secret that you don't get too well along with Zverev and Tsitsipas, how easy is it really to mentally make the switch and just truly support each other?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, to be honest, I don't think it's that tough, because we, for sure when we play sometimes in the press conference, we can, you know, say some things. And we're not best friends with them, that's reality, but I think we all have respect for each other. So we're here, we support 100% each other, and honestly, at least for me, it's an easy switch.

So, yeah, I think there is, you know, I see this in other sports, in tennis, also, especially with social media, we love to -- something happens, let's say I scream on umpire, that's not good, and then for ten years we put it, TikTok, Instagram, this video, they remake it with music, et cetera, we exaggerate things.

So what happened with me, Sascha, Stefanos, yeah, we played some matches. Sometimes we had some fights. Sometimes someone said something in the press conference. And it's okay. In one month, we don't remember it too much. We still rivals.

But people tend to exaggerate it. Oh, my God, they hate each other. It's such a crazy thing. No, it's okay, we respect each other. Here I think we support each other like never before, and it's a funny feeling.

Q. It seems like, from the outside, that Grigor has taken on quite a sort of a coaching role. I don't know how you feel about that, Thomas. I wonder if that's the reality? And also what he was saying to you at the end of the match? Looked like he stayed on and...

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, we were talking a little bit about the serve. I'm not going to go too much into details. Not the serve, like where do I serve, because Frances was reading my serve well. I was a bit surprised, in a way. We were talking a little bit about this.

Then other matches, I don't know who went more coaching. I don't do it. I just don't feel like I'm, in a way, even scared to come there during the match to someone, do this. I'm just looking, observating.

I don't know if other guys Grigor also went for it. With me, yeah, he went for it a little. But as I said, I think it was some good pieces of advice. Even after the match, sometimes yeah, you lose the match, you want to discuss a little. But then what could I have done better? And basically the guys told me, well, I don't know if they lied or not, yeah, he played well and you fought. Everything was not so bad, yeah.

Q. Daniil, when you looked at the head-to-head record with you and Frances before this match, I think he had only won one set against you at a tour level. I think it was 5-0 for you.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Where did he win this at, do you know?

Q. I did see that, but...

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Anyway... I try to remember the matches.

Q. Did any of the previous results come into focus at all before today?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: In a way, I need to say I like to play Frances usually. Like also because he's very electric, but because of this, very up and down. His high is very high, but usually, you know, that's what I did in the second set when he was playing very good, you stay there, you stay there, and he will have his down moments. And he didn't have one.

Was it because it was the tiebreak and not a real set? Never know. I mean, he played well in US Open and Cincinnati. Not sure it's just because of the shorter third set. But yeah, usually I like to play against him. Today it didn't work out. Yeah, not much I can add.

Q. Thomas, it's spoken a lot about the interaction between the other players and yourself and all that with Daniil, but there were a couple of moments where the three of you -- you, Bjorn, Daniil -- were having a bit of a laugh on some of the discussions. Can you remember what those moments were, what it was about?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I don't remember. Do you remember?

VICE CAPTAIN THOMAS ENQVIST: Yeah, I didn't remember that. But that's why it's so fantastic with Laver Cup, that they are very generous to each other, I would say. I mean, we have eight players on our team who's very, very good tennis players. They know so much about the game, they know so much about each other and their opponents.

It's been throughout the Laver Cup, all the Laver Cups I have been part of, I have been very happy to see how generous they are to each other with advice and how they come together and give each other, you know, the push and everything.

But most of the things that we say on the bench is literally just to give energy. In my opinion, Daniil is one of the absolute smartest tennis players on the tour, and it's not so much you interact with when it comes to his game plan or something like this. It's more about to keep him in the game, keep him happy. I want him to feel we are there for him. It's all good.

I think I agree with Daniil, I think it was a good tennis match. He has to say congratulations to Frances who went for it. He knew that to beat this guy you really need to be taking chances, and he did and it worked. We are moving on, hopefully take the next one.