The misfortune of some causes happiness of others: By losing on Thursday in the quarter-finals of the Dubai Championships, Novak Djokovic relinquished the throne of the world’s number one tennis player. Daniil Medvedev, who will take over this position on Monday, when the new rating is published.
Waiting for days to see his name at the top, but it’s a goal built by the Russian with years of work, to become the leader of generational change in racket sport.
“It’s not easy to play a match when you hear this news during the day,” said Medvedev, who defeated Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 6-2 6-3 in the quarter-finals of the tournament in Acapulco (Mexico), away from Dubai. Thursday.
At 26, he put an end to the “big four era”: since 2004 he has been number one in the ATP Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer or Andy Murray.
The last months are the ones that were for Medvedev’s absolute affirmation.
In September 2021, he defeated Djokovic in the US Open final, to claim his first Grand Slam title.And in January he was on the verge of lifting the trophy at the Australian Open, but lost in the last match to Nadal.
He then missed the opportunity to become the first player in the “Open Era” (since 1968) to win his first two consecutive Grand Slam titles.
‘I was crazy’
It was by chance that the slender six-foot-tall Russian found himself with a racket in hand at the age of nine. Taking him to swimming lessons, his mother Olga saw an advertisement for tennis courses, and his father, Sergey, a computer engineer, supported the idea of \u200b\u200bregistering it.
At that time I was not aware of the high budget of rackets, and that Little Medvedev will be a nervous wreck in his first forays On the road.
Admit “I was crazy!” to liberate In 2019. “You can’t imagine what I was like until I was 19… at the age of 10 I was doing anything on the track.”
“He was screaming, crying, breaking rackets… He did whatever you can imagine. I didn’t like being like this. Since I was 14 I could lose many matches because of this situation. And after each loss he thought about it for a long time. “.
After studying physics, mathematics and then commerce, the “FIFA” video game lover devoted himself entirely to tennis. His parents are with him, since the family moved with him to France in 2014, where he met his current coach.
strong personality
Medvedev was still unknown on the ring in 2017, when he played his first Wimbledon with an impressive performance.. After being defeated in the second round by Belgian Ruben Bemelmans, he threw coins at the base of the chair umpire to contest a decision.
But he ended up understanding that this situation didn’t help him. Just before the 2019 US Open, Medvedev explained that he turned to a psychiatrist to help channel his emotions.
“It works a lot of the time. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a game where I’m going to go completely crazy all of a sudden.”
That was exactly what happened at the US Open that year. Against Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, he qualified under boos after brazenly taking the towel from the ball boy and tossing it to the ground, he threw his racket toward his chair and made an ugly gesture in front of the TV camera.
“Thank you all, the more you whistle, the more energy you give me,” said the Russian tennis player. “I was an idiot. I’m working on becoming a better person on the field‘ I apologize later.
The whistles did not stop until the final, in a gigantic battle he finally lost to Nadal.
Now, cooler, mature, more focused, Medvedev reached the top of the world ranking.
With information from Agence France-Presse.
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