Daniil Medvedev has praised the rivalry between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic at the top of the men’s game as he feels energised for this year’s US Open.
Medvedev could be seen as a dark horse for this year’s competition with many seemingly observing Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic as heavy favourites for the title.
The former champion is gearing up to try and win his second title in three years and denied that he felt pressure when defending his title last year, “I will generally say I don’t think I really felt much pressure. I just wanted to do well,” Medvedev said in his pre-tournament press conference.
“Tough match against Nick. Generally last year, if I take it as a whole, I was not playing too bad. I was in Turin. Final of Australian Open, even if it’s in the beginning of the year, it’s still last year. In general, the year was maybe my worst year in four, five years.
“So I don’t think it was something to do with defending the US Open title itself. But, yeah, I hope I can defend one of the titles. I never had two for the moment. That’s my chance here. I’m sure Carlos is such a strong player that I’m sure it’s not going to bother him too much about thinking to defend his
title.”
Speaking of Alcaraz, the Spaniard has had an intense rivalry with Djokovic over the last couple of months which saw them win one epic match apiece at Wimbledon and Cincinnati.
Ahead of the US Open, Medvedev reflected on the rivalry and seemed excited by the prospect of attempting to stop the dream final, “No, I think honestly it’s great. I think it’s great for tennis that we have these two guys playing against each other right now,” Medvedev explained.
“As I say, it’s a great story, but then the tournament starts and hopefully we can — when I say ‘we’, me personally or someone else — we’re going to try to beat them and stop them from playing each other. But again, doesn’t irritate me at all because I always said that sometimes we have this overrated, underrated, right, usually in social media. You go on Instagram and everyone after every match is like, He’s overrated, He’s underrated. That’s their favourite thing to say.
“I think that’s normal we talk about them. I do think we still talk about me. I’m not feeling too bad, but I’m going to try. The goal is, after this US Open, that we talk about me, so I’m going to try to do it.”
Before Medvedev can think about stopping Alcaraz or Djokovic, the former champion has to focus on his own campaign and game.
Speaking ahead of the final Grand Slam of the year, Medvedev said he is feeling energized about this year’s tournament, “I feel great. Then we come again to this unconscious part. Do I feel tired? I don’t think so. I feel great,” Medvedev stated.
“Also Toronto and Cincinnati I had a lot of time to continue practicing, preparing, just because I had this off time when you lose. It all comes down to how do you feel during the tournament. It can be different. You can come to the tournament, you feel awful, then during the tournament you feel better and better. Or the other way around.
“I’m feeling good right now. Hopefully I can feel like this during the tournament also. How do you cope with this? You try with your team to do the best schedule possible in terms of days off, practices, what you do in your off time. I feel like I’m pretty experienced in this so hopefully I can be
100% starting from the first match.”
Medvedev will start his US Open campaign against Attila Balazs on Tuesday.
