Cervara On Medvedev’s Win Over Alcaraz, Deep Return Position & Facing Djokovic

Gilles Cervara opened a bite-sized chocolate during the US Open semi-final between his charge, Daniil Medvedev, and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz. The inside of the candy wrapper read “Today is your day”.

That proved prophetic as 2021 titlist Medvedev ousted the top seed in four sets to reach his third US Open final.

“There is the first step in the beginning of the match, like two years ago against Novak [Djokovic] in the final. I was wondering straight away if he could resist Carlos,” Cervara told ATPTour.com after Medvedev’s win. “Straightaway I felt that it was that kind of day, that kind of match where you could do it. I’ve seen all the first set, the tie-break, then the second set.

“After I was a bit worried in the third set, when Carlos played amazing. He had amazing moments. But in the first part of the match, I thought that was one of these days where he could do it.”

Medvedev explained after his victory that he felt he had reached a 12 out of 10 with his performance against the Spaniard. “To beat him, you need to be better than yourself and I managed to do it,” he said. Cervara agreed.

“I respect players. They are thinking a lot with the strategy, they have to do it,” Cervara said. “But me as a person and as a coach, and also as a sportsman, I really believe that you have to find something more inside yourself to make your game and your strategy efficient. So, of course, I had to talk [to Daniil] about this invisible part.”

One of the talking points among fans and experts leading into the match was what Medvedev would do to reverse what happened in the pair’s two Lexus ATP Head2Head matches earlier this season. In those clashes, Alcaraz won all five sets without losing more than three games in any of them.

Medvedev has become known for his ultra-deep return position. Would the World No. 3 change that strategy?

He did not and although Alcaraz took advantage by winning 54 of his 70 net points in the match (77%), Medvedev maintained a high level throughout to triumph.

“First of all, I want to say that he’s able to change his return position. But he would do it if he really feels that he cannot win like this,” Cervara said. “That’s the main thing. And so, it’s tough to be in people’s brains or to understand what they feel. And I think that people don’t understand what he feels, what he sees, what he believes.

“That is even if from our perspective it looks crazy to be where he is standing. For him, he has a totally different perspective, different vision of the court, of his movement. That’s all.”

Cervara remembers a specific moment during his first year as Medvedev’s coach. The Frenchman created an exercise to work on his player’s return in order to make his position lower and closer to the baseline.

“He said to me one thing. ‘But if I do this, I don’t feel that I can push,’” Cervara recalled. “And when he said this, I was like, ‘Okay, I understand that.’ I have to take care of his feeling. Because if I don’t do it, I’m going to destroy him.”

It was important for Medvedev to feel he had the ability to push with his legs into the return.

“And then also because he feels that like this, he can put the ball back. Running after his return is important for him to build his game also,” Cervara said. “So yeah, it’s a mental and neuronal configuration in the brain. It’s working.”

As thrilling as Medvedev’s performance against Alcaraz was, he is not holding the trophy yet. He needs to beat 23-time major winner Novak Djokovic in the final to earn it. Two years ago, Medvedev halted the Serbian’s pursuit of history in the US Open final. Djokovic was trying to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win all four majors in the same year.

What does Cervara remember most from that championship clash?

“I think right now the first thing is probably the last game, how tough the last game was for me. And the moment he won the title,” Cervara said.

The Frenchman explained that the challenges of facing Alcaraz and Djokovic are different.

“They are different people, different players. So everything will be different,” Cervara said. “We are going to talk about this of course.”

Djokovic leads Medvedev 9-5 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head, but Medvedev won their most recent clash in this year’s Dubai semi-finals. That remains the Serbian’s lone hard-court loss of the season (26-1).

“I think we are going to talk about many matches for sure because we have to be ready for different things,” Cervara said. “In two days it’s going to be again a tough one, and such an important one.”