September 12, 2021 could have marked the crowning glory of Novak Djokovic’s career. At the US Open, he was one match away from achieving men’s tennis’ first Grand Slam — winning all four Majors in a year — since Rod Laver managed the feat in 1969. With a win, he would have also become the greatest men’s player in history, statistically, by capturing a record-breaking 21st Major. Sporting immortality beckoned.
Instead, what one saw was a watershed moment for men’s tennis, a blindingly devastating performance from Daniil Medvedev that dented Djokovic’s hitherto inhuman standards, one that earned the Russian his first Major trophy.
The significance of the win wasn’t lost. This was the first time a young player had felled one of the ‘Big 3’ in a Slam final. A passing of the baton it didn’t prove to be, with Rafael Nadal and Djokovic going on to win the subsequent three Majors. But never did anyone think that a man significantly younger — Medvedev was 25 then, Djokovic 34 — would finally defeat the old guard at the top of their games, when the stakes were that high.
So far and deep have the tremors from that earthquake of a performance extended that Medvedev, the reigning World No.1, despite a below-par season, will still be among the favourites when the 2022 edition kicks off on Monday.
The rise
To the casual eye, that 2021 show may seem like a one-off. But a closer look will reveal that Medvedev was building up for it. For a good two years leading in, he was arguably the best hard-court player in the world, particularly ruthless in the period starting from the US Open swing until the Australian Open.
In 2019 — his coming out year — he was all but untouchable over the course of 10 weeks between late July and early October, winning three titles (Cincinnati, St. Petersburg, Shanghai), making three finals (Citi Open, Canada, US Open) and amassing a 29-3 record to reach a new career high of World No. 4.
In 2020, after getting to the semifinals in New York, he ended the season with the Paris Masters and ATP World Tour Finals titles. The second of these was particularly significant, an irresistible run to the trophy that featured wins over the then ATP top-three — Djokovic, Nadal and Dominic Thiem.
Medvedev backed this up by leading Russia to the title in the 2021 ATP Cup and making the Australian Open final. And he ended 2021 in rousing fashion, racking up a 25-4 record starting from the Canada Masters, including two titles and two finals, the acme being the historic triumph at Flushing Meadows.
No weaknesses
“There are no holes in his game,” Djokovic would observe after losing the final. “I mean, both forehand and backhand are very solid. Just running forehand, forehand from mid-court, something that probably wasn’t his forte in the past, now he has improved a lot. It’s just he always makes you play [another shot].”
When Medvedev first arrived, there was no inkling of all the success to follow. But the man defies convention. Reed-thin, loose-limbed, gangly and with slightly unkempt hair, he gives the impression of someone who has come to scrap. Shorn of elegant athleticism, his movement resembles a series of stumbles. His technique, swing-path and follow-through all need careful study because it’s easy to misread his game.
So much so that in early 2017, when Medvedev played at the Chennai Open, where he would reach his first Tour-level final, this correspondent — in hindsight erroneously — concluded during a first-round match that he appeared too bored and uninterested to be on court.
“He has a very weird game. It’s very sloppy, but a good sloppy,” Stefanos Tsitsipas said in 2019. “I don’t mean this in a bad way. He’s just very uncomfortable to play against. He can make you miss without understanding why you missed.”
He still gives out the same deceptive vibes, but therein lies a hard-court genius. For players of his height — 6’6” — most of the game is about the serve and the serve+1 shot. Lack of movement is their bane.
Rare combination
But Medvedev is that rare player who is simultaneously a great server, mover and returner. His octopus-like limbs mean that he can land serves from the top of Eiffel Tower and, with a superb deep-court defence, pluck balls from the crowd. If Djokovic is elastic, Medvedev is a noodle.
He also hits among the flattest balls on tour, cuts off angles by moving diagonally and has a high contact point which makes it seem like he is not really striking the ball but smothering it.
“He is a total counter-puncher, you don’t really see so many true, true counter-punchers in today’s game,” World No. 28 Reilly Opelka, who is five inches taller than Medvedev, said. “He’s holding serve easy every time, and then he’s in almost every return game.
“Simple math: the other guy’s service games are really long, really tough, he’s making a million balls. And then his service games are pretty short and to the point. If the guy catches a few returns, he has no problem running and scrapping.”
For two-and-a-half sets against Nadal in the 2022 Australian Open final, this game of his was in full flow, before the Spaniard staged a comeback for the ages. But that did not stop Medvedev from becoming World No. 1 in February, the first player other than Djokovic, Roger Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray to hold the top spot since Andy Roddick on February 1, 2004.
Bittersweet period
The period since then, though, has been bittersweet. Medvedev lost the top spot three weeks after earning it and regained it only in mid-June. He missed all but one of the French Open tune-up events to recover from a hernia procedure and was unfortunately barred from competing at Wimbledon because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was not until the ATP 250 in Los Cabos, Mexico, earlier this month that he secured his first title of the year and the run to the Cincinnati semifinals was his first at a Masters this season.
“Over the past 12 months, a lot has happened,” Medvedev wrote in Eurosport recently. “The Australian Open, the world No. 1 spot, my injury this spring, wins, losses... a player’s life does not exist without all these things, [and] I take it all as experience. If we go into the details, sure, we can find positives and negatives. But, when I look back, I tell myself that it’s experience, it’s life. All this made me progress as a human being.”
US Open 2022 can potentially herald further progress for Medvedev, the player. With Djokovic missing the tournament over his Covid vaccination status and Nadal undercooked in his preparation, Medvedev, who has reached the final at four of the last six hard-court Majors, is the man to beat. He may not be in rich form, but there is no reason why he cannot rise again. On-court deception, after all, is his character trait.
“I hope to live some great moments, starting with the US Open,” he wrote. “Will not having played at Wimbledon help me for the US Open and the rest of the year? I really hope so. It allowed me to do a big three-week preparation for the US Open and the end of the season. Physically and mentally, I hope to be 100% until the end of the year.”
