DUBAI: Daniil Medvedev looks at his tennis like it was a mathematical sum. A problem that his two coaches – Gilles Cervara and new hire Gilles Simon – would come up with the right quotient for.
Just that the problems answer to names -- Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and more recently Jannik Sinner.
Medvedev, the world No. 4 and top seed at the Dubai Duty Free tennis championships, who lost to Sinner in the final of the Australian Open three weeks ago, has taken his time returning to the Tour. He was stalled by niggling issues of the foot, abductor and shoulder muscles.
Cervara’s inability to put in as many weeks as Medvedev would want him to is the reason the 28-year-old reached out to the other Gilles, former pro Simon, who quit the sport in 2022.
“I wanted to find someone who is going to help me with my game,” said Medvedev. “Simon knows tennis well. He was able to beat me and make me feel not good on the court (Gilles leads head-to-head 3-1). Together the two Gilles can discuss what is getting me in trouble. We share a little bit of the same mentality. We're easygoing. We just started working. If it doesn't work, we finish tomorrow. If it works well, maybe we will do it for many years.”
Medvedev won the first six matches he played against Sinner. The 22-year-old Italian took the next four, starting with the final in Beijing last September.
“He’s playing better,” the Russian said of Sinner. “Maybe in Beijing, when he beat me for the first time, he mixed it up. In the next matches, he played better than before. Earlier the matches (against Sinner) were tough, but he could miss here and there, break point, miss a first serve, a forehand. Now it doesn't happen. Even if he does, he's going to (come back) with a good shot.”
“Mentally I don't feel like I'm scared,” Medvedev said. “You need to be at your absolute best when playing him. All the shots have to be perfect. Even that may not be enough, like it was in Australia. That’s a force that big tennis players have, and he's definitely the big one right now.”
The Russian laid out a blink and it’s gone scenario when playing heavyweights -- Alcaraz, Sinner or Djokovic.
“You make a bad shot on a break point, you go back to deuce, and it is tough (to turn it from there again),” he said. “Mentally you have to be at your best from beginning to end.”
