Daniil Medvedev was dissatisfied and disheartened by his quarter-final exit at the hands of Jannik Sinner on Wednesday evening at the US Open. Yet in trademark fashion for one of the ATP Tour’s master tacticians, it did not take long for the World No. 5 to form a detailed assessment of his four-set defeat.
“[It’s a] tough loss,” said Medvedev after Sinner’s 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 triumph in New York. “I am definitely not happy with the way I played in general, because there were some very good moments and some not so good. So in general it's a tough feeling when you come out, and at the end it's rare that I get tight, but in the end I got super tight.
“When I was missing, I didn't feel why I was missing, so I couldn't correct it, and then I got super tight at the end, and it was even tougher. Not an easy feeling, not happy with myself, but that's tennis, it's okay. I lost. I go home.”
After dropping the opening set, Medvedev eased to the second in a topsy-turvy encounter inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. He was unable to maintain that momentum, however, and was ultimately defeated in four sets as Sinner avenged his five-set defeat in the pair’s Wimbledon quarter-final two months ago.
“The first set was horrible for me. I think almost even probably worse than the third one,” reflected Medvedev. “I managed to solve a lot of problems in the second set. Played better. Same in the fourth set, like I managed to start solving some problems that I had in the third set. So those are the positive things.”
Medvedev arrived in New York off the back of three straight defeats at the Paris Olympics, in Montreal and Cincinnati, respectively. He put that slump in form behind him by dropping just one set across his first four rounds at the US Open, but acknowledged he still didn’t feel like he had completely settled into the North American hard-court swing.
“A theory I have is that here I saw it in practice, the week before the tournament,” said Medvedev. “The balls, the courts, not easy. It was the same in Montreal, Cincinnati, it's not super easy to control them. So sometimes you feel like you're doing all good and then you miss and then you have question marks.
“But before I played maybe I was more like confident with myself that I will win this match even if I miss some shots. So maybe today I was going for a little bit more risky shots, I was missing just a bit more. One moment I kind of got lost in my misses. Maybe it was the same for him a little bit, because I still managed to many times put him in trouble even if it was not enough.”
[ATP APP]With his latest win against Medvedev, Sinner continued to eat away at his rival’s lead in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series. Medvedev at one point led the Italian 6-0, but Sinner has since won six of seven meetings between the pair to cut the deficit to 6-7.
“Lately it has been a tough one for me, but at the same time, honestly today, comparing to some matches I played with him last year when he started to beat me, I felt like I was doing the right things,” said Medvedev when asked about his matchup with Sinner. “I just didn't manage to execute them well. I feel like the match itself, he was doing the right thing and I was doing the right thing.
“So I feel like we both come out of this match thinking, ‘Okay, now I feel what he does’. Well, the only thing is that I lost, and he won. So he will be feeling better. To have big rivalries like this always pushes me to be better, and sometimes I lose; sometimes I win. I will try to be better next time, and that's the only thing I can do.”
Although Medvedev’s wait for his second major title after his 2021 US Open triumph goes on, his quarter-final run in New York has had a positive short-term impact when it comes to his hopes of competing at the Nitto ATP Finals for the sixth consecutive year. The 28-year-old has consolidated fourth place in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, with Taylor Fritz the only player remaining in the draw able to leapfrog him during the US Open.
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