Cervara Exclusive: How Medvedev Went From Cold To Gold

Daniil Medvedev earned his fifth ATP Masters 1000 trophy when he defeated Jannik Sinner on Sunday for the Miami Open presented by Itau title. It was the best moment yet of a torrid stretch for the 27-year-old, who also claimed crowns in Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai and reached the final at Indian Wells.

Less than two months ago, Medvedev was No. 12 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, his lowest point since July 2019. Now he is back to World No. 4 with an opportunity to surge higher during the clay-court season.

After Medvedev’s Miami triumph, ATPTour.com caught up with his coach, Gilles Cervara, who revealed when everything turned around, why opponents struggle so much against the former World No. 1 and more.

Last year was tough for Daniil. The start of this year was tough. When did everything click and turn around?
For me, it turned around just before Rotterdam. I remember as a coach the three days in Rotterdam before the first round on court were very, very tough. I felt after the Australian Open, during two weeks of practising, but then a few days before the first round in Rotterdam, I felt Daniil quite nervous, quite not confident.

But I felt also he could play good tennis. My job at that time was to find the way to talk to him in a good way to find the good button inside himself to make him practise well and to win the sets during practices. That’s what happened.

Even if he was not ready to realise that he was playing good at that time, I felt that I touched something. Then the first round against [Alejandro] Davidovich [Fokina] was key, to win this one even [though he was] in trouble. And then day after day was getting better and better and then the win against Felix [Auger-Aliassime] made also another important step to get on fire.

What was the piece of advice you gave him?
It was not special advice… I know Daniil, I know how it works with him. I try to adapt with the situation and what he says is very important. Let’s say I talked about this book, it’s like water. I try to be like water, to use the good wave, let’s [put it] like this.

And because he’s a smart guy and he’s an amazing player, when you touch the good thing, he’s able to transform sh** to gold, let’s say it like this.

What is it that people don’t understand about Daniil and his game?
Tough to say. Tough to say because I’m not in front of him to say it. But sometimes his shots have power, sometimes not. Sometimes you expect something but he goes the other way. Sometimes you expect a deep ball and it comes short with no consistency.

Then one thing [that is] important is he is like a wall. Every ball is coming back and he’s not missing. He’s serving, he’s running. He’s able to almost find a solution for any problem.

He’s an amazing fighter. He really wants to win all the time, so he doesn’t give anything to the opponent and he pushes the opponents at a level that sometimes — I’m not talking about the top players because they’re used to it — but for the other players, they’re not used to playing every point like this. The combo of this makes him so tough to play.

After the Carlos Alcaraz match at Indian Wells where he lost in the final, it would have been easy for him to maybe be down. But he came back and played a great tournament even though historically this swing was never great for him results-wise. How important was it for Daniil to bounce back like that?
Him and I and all the team, our job, I know myself and I know Daniil, we want to win. It’s like [in] our skin to play to win. That’s all it’s about in fact. So you try every day when you are on court to do the best you can do. When you play you want to win.

For example, a small joke when I play snooker with Daniil, I’m ready to get crazy to win against him and he is the same. So there is a lot of tension between us, you can feel it, because he wants to beat me and I want to beat him.