Daniil Medvedev enjoyed his breakthrough season in 2019 reaching six consecutive finals including his first Grand Slam final at the US Open last September.
During an interview to Behind the Racquet Medvedev talked about the many challenges he had to face in the early stages of his career.
“There was always a little bit of a fight between my father and my mother. My mother wanted to study more. I was in school, while playing tennis until I was 18. In Russia most professional athletes are done studying around 12 years old. It might have been the reason I wasn’t as good as my friends for some time, but I have no regrets. There were matches where I lost and all I was thinking about was the extra 100 dollars I could have made. The toughest period for me was the switch from juniors to pros. I ended at 13 in junior tennis. I started to quickly understand, after playing futures, just how difficult it would be to get from 700 to 300 in the world. You needed to save as much money as possible while trying to win five or six Futures as possible”, said Medvedev.
Medvedev revealed a moment from his past, when he was ranked world number 700.
“I remember talking to Bublik, playing a future thirty minutes away from where I lived in France. I was around 700 in the world and asked him: “How do you even become 300, does it seem impossible ? To this day he remembers that line and will joke when he sees me. “Come on, how did you become 300 ?”.
Medvedev admitted that he struggled to have a professional approach to tennis off the court, even when he broke into the top 100. Only when he reached the Chennai final in 2017 Medvedev decided to devote to tennis.
“Even after reaching the top 100 for the first time, I knew deep down I was not professional. When I was on court I would give 100%, but off the court I would not do the right things. I went to bed late, play hours of Playstation and just not worry about the right things. From 70 to 5 in the world was the jump where I really decided where I really decided to dedicate everything to tennis. I wanted to find my limits. I know people say there are none, but I want to test myself and test mine. That was the moment for me,” said Medvedev.
