Daniil Medvedev has been enjoying his breakout season at the age of 21. The Russian started 2017 at No. 99 and hit the ground running, reaching finals in Chennai. Medvedev backed it up by consecutive quarterfinals in Montpellier and Marseille. Then followed a losing streak from Dubai through all of clay until s-Hertogenbosch, which finally stopped at 6. Medvedev has had a pretty great grass season, getting to quarterfinals in s-Hertogenbosch and Queen’s Club before making semifinals in Eastbourne. Medvedev broke into Top 50 and this was his main draw Wimbledon debut.
After reaching the French Open final, Wawrinka has struggled on grass. The Swiss took a first round loss in Queen’s to Feliciano Lopez, and now lost again in the opening round to Medvedev in four sets. Both players knew that Wawrinka wasn’t a 100% fit, struggling with a knee injury, which definitely gave Medvedev the confidence.
From the start it was apparent that Wawrinka was injured. His movement wasn’t great and was lacking power from both wings. The 198 centimeters tall Medvedev was serving on point. His serve isn’t among the strongest, but very precise in its positioning. The Russian also utilizes his height for a kick second serve which gave Stan a lot of trouble into the one-handed backhand.
Stan’s movement got worse as the match wore on, giving Medvedev more opportunities to expose. It was expected that Medvedev would struggle with nerves towards the end, but that never came. The Russian acquired two breaks in the fourth set. Wawrinka saved two match points on Medvedev’s serve at 5-1. Medvedev ended the match on his first advantage, and earned the biggest win of his career.
Medvedev’s Round of 64 opponent will be qualifier Ruben Bemelmans. Bemelmans defeated Tommy Haas in the 1st Round, thus ending the German’s probably last Wimbledon. Daniil Medvedev will be the favorite to get to Round of 32, where he is going to face Kevin Anderson or Andreas Seppi. He’s definitely not without chance of making Round of 16 and probably playing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Manic Monday.
Post Match Comments
Stan Wawrinka:
“I wasn’t feeling the way I wanted to feel. But play against a great player who I think was confident today, was playing well, was playing faster. Was a tough lost.”
“Apparently grass is not the best surface for my knee. I need to figure it out exactly what’s the problem now, what I’m going to do, and come back on the tennis court when I will feeling without any pain.”
“He’s a really good player, that’s for sure. I was expecting a tough match. Saw him playing last couple of week on grass. He’s playing really well on grass. He’s playing fast and flat ball. He’s moving quite good. He loves the grass to play his game. Yeah, he’s a really dangerous player.”
Daniil Medvedev:
“First of all, it’s my first Grand Slam win. So even I guess if I didn’t beat Stan, it would be one of the biggest wins in my life. My first top-10 win. I have no words to describe this. I guess this memory will be with me forever.”
“I think my game suits really well on grass, because I don’t have, like, huge serve but it’s quite strong and very precise. So that’s the best thing for grass, because with the grass it goes faster than on hard or clay. Then I have really flat game, which no one likes to play, because you have to put the ball up after my shots. I’m good at the key moments. So far I have been good at these key moments. So, like, everything just makes me play well on grass, and that’s my favorite surface.”
“Yeah, I had mononucleosis. It was really tough time, because I was in Indian Wells, and I was feeling like hell there. It was so bad. One moment I couldn’t drink water because I had it with angina. After I read that mononucleosis comes often with angina, I didn’t eat for three days; I had only mashed potatoes because I couldn’t even drink. I went back to Europe and understood I had mononucleosis and I have to stay home for like one month, do nothing.
So it was not easy, and when I came back, because finally I guess I knew about it when it was an early stage, so that’s why in two months I’m here playing Wimbledon.
But when I came back, I think I came back a little bit too early, and I made a hip injury in Budapest. I had to retire during the match. That was two weeks without tennis more.
And then when I came back, in Lyon was really tough to play on clay and I had cramps during Roland Garros, so it was really tough for me.
I’m happy this grass court season is going like this.”
“We are all good friends. I mean, it’s right now three of us coming through, I guess. We know each other since we are maybe 8 or 7. It’s just great. I talked once to my girlfriend that, I mean, who would think when we were 10 we knew each other already, who would think that all of us would be main draw Wimbledon and me playing Centre Court, beating Stan, Karen upsetting…
It’s amazing what’s happen. I really don’t know the reasons. We are all competitive. Every one of us wants to be better than the other one. I think when one does good, the other ones try to follow.
Of course I will try to follow even without other Russians, but I think this is one of the things that makes us grow faster.”
The press also found out some other fun facts about Daniil Medvedev, such as that he has no relation to Andrei Medvedev (Former No. 4 from Ukraine) or Dmitry Medvedev (Former president and current Prime Minister of Russia). Also the Russian lives in Monaco and speaks French.
