Expressing his sentiments, Daniil Medvedev acknowledges a “slight pressure” at the Canadian Open, yet he exudes confidence and contentment on his preferred surface in the lead-up to the US Open. Having claimed victory at the Canadian Open in 2021, Medvedev commences his journey against qualifier Matteo Arnaldi. As a former US Open champion, he strives to attain his peak performance while gearing up for the final Grand Slam of the 2023 season.
If Daniil Medvedev could pick out a section of the tennis season, bottle it up, and replicate it across the whole year it would probably be the North American hard-court summer.
It’s no secret at all that hard courts are his favourite surface – he’s won 18 of his 20 tour-level titles on them.
And this is the period of the year where he has played some of his very best tennis.
In 2019 he made the final of the Canadian Open and then won his first Masters title in Cincinnati. Two years later he was arguably at his peak when he won the Canadian Open, made the semis in Cincinnati, and then beat Novak Djokovic to lift his first Grand Slam title at the US Open. Even last summer, despite being in a slight career dip, he still made the last four in Cincinnati.
It’s little wonder with his previous success across Canada, Cincinnati and New York that he says he feels “a small pressure” heading into the summer.
“I love to play all these tournaments, I played them very well many times. But it’s a small pressure because I know that I want to do well here,” he said ahead of playing the Canadian Open this week.
“So it’s a little bit of pressure where I’ll have to cope with it and to try to go through it. I feel like I have done it many times in my career, but it’s going to be here again and again. So I have to deal with it.”
The ATP Canadian Open is this year being played in Toronto, with the WTA event in Montreal.
Medvedev made the third round on his Toronto debut in 2018, beating 13th seed Jack Sock and home favourite Felix Auger-Aliassime. On his second appearance in Toronto in 2021 he lifted the title.
“I love this tournament,” he says.
“I remember actually playing well, even [five] years ago, I lost to [Alexander] Zverev, but I passed qualies, beat Felix. It was a crazy match, so very good memories so far from Toronto.”
Medvedev has returned to form this year and has already won hard-court titles in Rotterdam, Doha, Dubai and Miami.
He has also shown he can be an all-court threat by winning his first clay title in Rome and making the semi-finals on grass at Wimbledon.
However, it is on hard courts where he still feels most at home.
“I’m really happy because that’s just my favourite surface, so I feel great on it. I feel like my game suits it very well, I feel it even in practice,” said Medvedev.
“And this doesn’t mean everything, you can still lose. In a way it’s easy to lose. There are so many players that want to win.
“But I love to play on hard courts. My body feels the best on it. So this is very important. I feel like on clay and grass, I have more things concerning my body like I would have pain here, there, probably because I would do some shots not in a good way or something like this. On hard courts I feel very fluid. So really happy. And let’s see how it goes.”
Second seed Medvedev will open his tournament against qualifier Matteo Arnaldi.
He thrilled fans at the weekend as he practised against top seed Carlos Alcaraz.
Alcaraz beat Medvedev in the Wimbledon semi-finals and also in the final of Indian Wells earlier this year.
“For sure, we’re not going to practise too often because hopefully we can play finals, semi-finals and more to come like two times this year already,” Medvedev said.
“So usually you don’t try this every day with your rivals, but it can happen once, twice, three times per year. And it was again a great practice. I think we both enjoyed it.”
