Gilles Cervara is well aware of the challenge his player, Daniil Medvedev, will face Friday when he plays defending champion and top seed Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals. According to the Frenchman, players need to find a level beyond their best to compete with the likes of the Spaniard.

“To beat the best you have to play probably over your level, you have to find something different. You have to be in almost the best day of your year, and you have to create the conditions for this,” Cervara told ATPTour.com. “I think and I really believe as a person and as a coach that you have to find something deeper inside yourself, to be someone stronger and stronger.

“If I use an example, you probably know Dragon Ball Z. Superhero. You have to find this power inside yourself to be like a superhero, to be over the best you can do. That’s what I think. And sports in general, I’ve always seen this all over the years. The No. 1 is almost unbeatable but someone is able to play over his best this day to beat him. And I think tomorrow is the day like this.”

In other words, a player needs to go into Super Saiyan mode. Medvedev will try to do just that as he tries to level his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Alcaraz at 2-2.

“I really believe that it’s really possible if you find this energy, this mentality, this fire,” Cervara said. “Of course in your game, your game becomes stronger and stronger and then your opponent looks not to be at his best this day also because you are over this.

“Daniil is one of the players able to do it.”

According to Cervara, Medvedev does not necessarily need to prepare differently for a challenge like playing Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic. It just requires a different level of focus.

“It’s just your margin of error or the margin of the good or the bad choices are getting like this,” Cervara said, pinching his fingers together. “You can always find something against lower players. Against the [best players]… your margin is very, very thin.”

Medvedev defeated close friend Andrey Rublev in straight sets in the quarter-finals, but made use of his margin for error earlier in the tournament, when he lost a set to Christopher O’Connell and Alex de Minaur. For the fourth time in the past five years, the 2021 champion is into the US Open semi-finals.

“It’s great to be there. First of all, in general, it’s very good to be there anywhere, and especially when you didn’t win so many matches. For guys like Daniil, every time you play a tournament, especially [ATP] Masters 1000s, you want to go to the final or to win the tournament for sure,” Cervara said. “And when you lose before those guys, maybe not all of them, but a guy like Daniil, then it becomes very, very tough every day. So everything can be difficult and you have to manage this every day.

“So it’s a lot of pressure, a lot of tension. And even if, from my perspective, as a coach, I always try to give the good side of what happened.”

Cervara felt that even in Medvedev’s quarter-final loss in Toronto (to Alex de Minaur) and third-round defeat in Cincinnati (to Alexander Zverev), there were plenty of positives from which the World No. 3 could be confident.

“But inside the player, he just sees that he doesn’t win, so it’s s***. And then you have to manage this negative feeling even if you feel that it’s not that bad. And you can feel the good things. So it makes the work very, very tough,” Cervara said. “When finally at the end during the major he plays good, you feel much better and you feel that yeah, my point of view was the good one, it was the right one.”

On Thursday morning Cervara went for a boxing session, an activity he enjoys throughout the world. The Frenchman felt his performance was not good enough and the coach told him he was being too hard on himself.

“I was laughing in my mind, because I was like, ‘Yeah, I know exactly how Daniil feels in that moment’, and I was like, ‘Yes’,” Cervara said. “But also, this dissatisfaction is also the engine to do better and better. But at the same time it puts you always in tension and frustration.”

So what flip did Medvedev switch at Flushing Meadows to raise his level and battle into the last four at the season’s final major, finding the form that helped him win five titles earlier in 2023?

“It’s tough to talk about this now because tomorrow we play a semi-final, so the tournament still is going on and I want to focus on the next step,” Cervara said. “And it’s a huge, huge step.”

When Madison Keys arrived home from Roland Garros this year following a second-round loss, she asked her fiancé, Bjorn Fratangelo, for help. The American’s coach had split with her after Charleston and she competed in Europe alone.

“It didn’t go so well. She had some tough losses, and she came home and asked for my help. And the first thing I said was like, ‘Are you sure?’” Fratangelo told ATPTour.com. “Because we’ve done a great job of kind of staying out of each other’s careers over the seven years we’ve been together. And she said yes.”

Since the Monday of the second week of Roland Garros, Fratangelo has served as Keys’ coach. The former No. 99 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings is still an active player and recently qualified for the ATP 500 event in Washington, but has been focussed on helping the US Open semi-finalist.

“I’m honestly pretty chronically injured. D.C. just happened to be because the list dropped,” Fratangelo said. “I hadn’t really been practising, if I’m going to be completely honest.”

The 30-year-old figured he might as well take the opportunity to compete there. But the World No. 638’s performance in Washington was not the start of a surge back towards the top of the sport.

“It was nice in a way and it was also a little bit sad, because since then things have kind of gone downhill with the injury and stuff, it’s in my foot. So I really haven’t hit much since. I played [an ATP Challenger Tour event in] Cary afterwards and I haven’t really hit much since then,” Fratangelo said. “It’s actually both feet. I have some genetic problems with some bones in my big toes. And I’ve actually fractured both of my sesamoid bones in both toes.”

 

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In a way, working with Keys in a coaching capacity has been a welcome distraction.

“It was a blessing to kind of have some other things to focus on. I did some coaching stuff for the USTA while I was out last fall with the juniors and stuff and I really enjoyed it. And that was kind of the first time that I thought like, ‘Wow, this coaching stuff is actually a little bit more fun than I thought it would be,’” Fratangelo said. “When she asked if I could go to the grass-court season with her and do Eastbourne and Wimbledon, of course I said yes. I wasn’t doing much and I didn’t expect to have the success that we’ve had and she’s had.

“She’s done an unbelievable job winning Eastbourne, quartering at Wimbledon, and now, kind of taking the momentum in the summertime. It’s been great.”

After the first couple days of standing behind Keys on the practice court and telling her what to do — which he does not like to do — it has been “pretty easy” for Fratangelo to adjust to his coaching role.

He has had to work on scouting the Hologic WTA Tour players since he does not know the women particularly well. And it has taken getting used to days dragging when he is not the one warming up, hitting, going through a pre-match routine, doing physio work and so on.

“You have a lot to think about, planning how to play,” Fratangelo said. “For instance, [against Marketa] Vondrousova tonight, I was second-guessing myself. ‘Is it the right way? Should I watch more?’ You just have a lot more time to think about kind of nothing. It makes the day a little bit long.”

But overall, Fratangelo has enjoyed the experience, especially with Keys.

“I think I have a good mind for the game and I’ve taken it myself as far as I’ve gone,” Fratangelo said. “I think that maybe even some of my frustration over the years of maybe not surpassing my career high or whatever it’s been, is just not being able to do the things that I think I need to do. So to put that on someone else has actually been quite awesome. Because it kind of just solidifies how I think of the game or how I see the game so far.

“And obviously look, we’re best friends. She’s my fiancée. There’s nothing we keep from each other and it’s been very collaborative and it’s been a lot of fun I think for both of us.”

An exciting two weeks at the US Open has clinched key milestones for several rising stars on the ATP Tour, most notably American Ben Shelton. The 20-year-old has produced a career-best performance to climb 28 spots to a career-high No. 19 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

The 2022 NCAA singles champion, who was No. 173 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings this time last year, will clash against Novak Djokovic in Friday’s semi-finals. Shelton is the youngest US Open men’s semi-finalist since Michael Chang in 1992.

Italian Matteo Arnaldi is another bright young star who enjoyed a standout run at the American Slam, launching himself inside the Top 50 of the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings for the first time. A competitor at last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals, the 22-year-old survived Frenchman Arthur Fils in five sets and upset 16th seed Cameron Norrie to reach the fourth round.

Dominic Stricker made a splash at Flushing Meadows by stunning seventh seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in a five-set, second-round match. The Swiss lefty struck 78 winners throughout the four-hour, 10-minute encounter and maintained his form to make the fourth round, setting him up for a Top 100 debut on Monday.

Borna Gojo and Rinky Hijikata found success at the season’s final major, earning them a spot in the Top 100. The Croatian Gojo, who is No. 76 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, advanced through qualifying en route to a fourth-round appearance. Hijikata also reached the round of 16, lifting him to No. 81 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

On the ATP Challenger Tour, Thiago Seyboth Wild was crowned champion at last week’s Challenger Citta’ di Como in Italy to also seal his Top 100 breakthrough this coming Monday. The 23-year-old has collected three Challenger trophies this season and earned his career-best victory at Roland Garros, where he upset Daniil Medvedev.

India’s Rohan Bopanna has returned to the US Open final 13 years after his first appearance in the title match, teaming with Australian Matthew Ebden to defeat Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in Thursday’s semi-finals.

The duo saved a break point on Ebden’s serve at 2-4 to avoid going down a double break in the first set, which they eventually captured in a tie-break. They claimed two breaks in the final set to close out the match 7-6(3), 6-2, hitting 36 winners to 19 from the Frenchmen.

“When we held after saving a break point to avoid going down a double break in the first set, that was really important,” Bopanna said. “We got some great energy from the crowd. Back in the final 13 years later for me, so I’m very happy.”

A winner of 24 tour-level doubles titles, Bopanna is looking for his first Grand Slam title at the age of 43. In 2010 he and Pakistani partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi finished runners-up to Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan in the US Open final.

Ebden won the 2022 Wimbledon doubles title with Max Purcell, with whom he also reached the 2022 Australian Open doubles final.

Bopanna and Ebden, who won the Indian Wells title in March and reached the Wimbledon semi-finals in July, improved to 32-15 since teaming at Adelaide-1 in the first week of the season.

They are third in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings and seem likely to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin from 12-19 November.

“Rohan beat me here [in 2018] so I thought we should partner up,” Ebden quipped post match. “We were both looking for partners at the end of last year so we decided to have a crack and we’ve been really enjoying it. Probably from the second month we’ve been going really well.”

In Friday’s final Bopanna and Ebden will play the winner of two-time defending champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury and Roland Garros champions Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek.

Remember the name Daniel Rincon.

For tennis fans that are tuned into junior Slam results, they will already be familiar with Rincon, who won the 2021 US Open boys’ singles title. Now the 20-year-old is rising on the ATP Challenger Tour, having reached four semi-finals in his past six events.

Three months before Rincon won the junior crown at Flushing Meadows, he was walking across the stage at the Rafa Nadal Academy as a graduate of the 2021 class. Throughout his time in Mallorca, Rincon soaked in valuable lessons, perhaps no experience more memorable than training with fellow lefty, 22-time major champion Nadal.

“He gives a lot of importance to footwork, going in and back the whole time, not just staying in the same place,” Rincon told the ATP Challenger Tour media team last week. “I think during the four, five years that I got the chance to practice with him being at the academy, that’s the most important thing that he says to me almost every day, so I take it very seriously and I try to improve it a lot.

“It’s great that the academy brings the players this opportunity. Playing with one of the greatest of all time is such an advantage and I tried to take the most out of it every day. He’s such a good guy, such a nice person and he always tries to help all the players. He gave me so many tips during practices when we go to drink water. We talk about my game, what I should develop and improve. It’s Rafa, so I tried to take the most out of it.”

While at the Academy, Rincon would also find time to enjoy golfing around the Spanish island, stating, “I tried to go with my friends almost every weekend we can.” When asked who would win between him and Nadal in golf, Rincon cracked a laugh, “Rafa for sure.”

Rincon is just the latest star from the Nadal Academy to be making waves on the Challenger circuit. His roommate at ‘RNA’, 19-year-old Abdullah Shelbayh, last year became the first player from Jordan to win a match in Challenger history at the Mallorca Challenger. In February, Shelbayh became the youngest Arab to reach a Challenger final in Manama. The two left-handers, who often partner in doubles, are climbing the Pepperstone ATP Rankings together.

Since the start of July, Rincon has won 15 of 22 Challenger matches, including a semi-final run last week at the Rafa Nadal Open by Movistar, which is held at the luxurious academy. At a career-high No. 198 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, the Madrid native hopes this is a sign of things to come.

“I started having a really good summer, I reached three semi-finals in a row. Then another quarter-finals. And Mallorca [was] my fifth quarter,” Rincon said. “It’s been an amazing summer and I hope to continue this way.

“Playing challengers is a big difference to the ITF and junior level. Players are better and it also shows when you have to practice with them. I think it also helped a lot in my development. Because maybe you finish a tournament, you lost in the first round, you still get the chance to practise with great players. Also they give you a lot of facilities to practice, where other circuits you don’t have many chances. So it’s great for the players and for our practices.”