Danil Medvedev takes the positives from his defeat against Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells - UBITENNIS

Danil Medvedev takes the positives from his defeat against Carlos Alcaraz in Indian Wells

By sampaolo
7 Min Read

Danil Medvedev saw his 19-match winning streak broken when he was defeated by Carlos Alcaraz in last Sunday’s Indian Wells final, but the Russian player is very confident after a successful start to his 2023 season. Medvedev won three consecutive ATP Tour titles in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai. The Russian achieved the best result of his career in Indian Wells where he had not gone beyond the quarter finals in his previous appearances in the Californian tournament. In the Californian desert he reached the final of an ATP Masters 1000 for the first time since he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Paris Bercy Rolex Masters in 2021. 

“I am disappointed with the result, but the week was amazing. I am just happy and proud to reach the final in Indian Wells, because it’s a clay court on hard court. That’s a good result for me. Answering all these questions, I feel pretty well. I won three tournaments. I managed to make my best result in Indian Wells, where I could not make the quarter finals before, and already my second match was three-setter”,said Medvedev. 

Medvedev has moved up to number 5 in the ATP Ranking. The Russian player has reached the quarter finals in each of the past editions of the Miami Open and will try to do even better this year. 

“A lot of points. A lot of things to see in the season. I started it really well. I have already made more points than last year at that point. I see only good things, and I am looking forward to Miami”. 

Medvedev said that he has taken the positives from his defeat against Alcaraz last Sunday. 

“I think I will get over this defeat very quickly. It depends on how many finals you lost in a row, what were your previous results. Sometimes how you are feeling in life right now. A lot of positives. I will be forever disappointed that I did not win the final, but I can laugh already and whatever, I am going to try to win the next one or win Indian Wells next year”. 

In Indian Wells Medvedev missed his chance to win his fifth ATP Masters 1000 title and tie his career-long winning streak of 20 consecutive matches. Medvedev was aiming to become the first male player to win four titles in five weeks since Andy Murray in 2016. 

“I am one win away from my record. That’s actually disappointing. This would be cool to try to beat it and maybe try to prolong it as long as possible. It’s great to have these streaks. I am really disappointed that it ended, but I have a lot of confidence from this streak. Because last year, that’s what I was missing, these streaks. I was doing finals sometimes, semifinals in Cincinnati, kind of playing good but not playing well in the semifinals. I managed to win 19 matches in a row. I am proud of it, and now it’s time to try to build a new streak. There is no other way in tennis”, 

Medvedev had to overcome many hurdles en route to reach the Indian Wells final. He rolled his ankle in his fourth-round win over Alexander Zverev and hurt his thumb in his quarter final win against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. 

“I had a pretty toxic relationship here with the courts, a love-hate relationship, so I would like to thank the court. I only played on this court. I gave it a hard time, so it gave me a hard time also. I rolled the ankle, the thumb, but it gave me the chance to finish the tournament. Thanks a lot to this court, I will definitely be back. I really love this tournament. I will be happy to come back many more years to come and hopefully I can start to love this court and Indian Wells together. I don’t like to lose, but today was unfortunately pretty easy. I hope you still enjoyed it”. 

Alcaraz won three Masters 1000 finals in Miami and Madrid in 2022 and Indian Wells 2023. 

“I would like to congratulate Carlos. You already have amazing achievements in your career and I am sure many more to come. Today is one more of them, winning in Indian Wells. I also of it, maybe next time you will give me the chance. Congrats to you and you team. You are the most respectful player on Tour. You probably say hi to 300 people a day. I have rarely seen it”

Medvedev admitted after the Indian Wells final that he would have played on a different court, 

“Alcaraz is playing good. I feel like he was serving well today. Serve and volley was good. It’s never easy to finish a match, especially a final. I was thinking about my match with Novak in the US Open, and try to do the same, put pressure on him. I made a very good return on his serve and volley, sliding forehand volley dropshot. It’s not easy to play him. I would definitely love to play against him on another surface, like maybe a little bit faster hard courts to see if I could do better. I don’t know if it’s his game that did not let me play my best level or just, for whatever reason, I did not play my best level. Mentally I was ready for the match. I don’t feel I took it too easy before the match. I was ready for a fight. I knew that I have a tough opponent on the other side. He played well. Good dropshots in good moments, some good moments to break me”, said Medvedev. 

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