Daniil Medvedev is eager to play Davis Cup Qualifiers in Switzerland
The 22-year-old Daniil Medvedev is one of the most promising players born in 1996 or after and he had a breakthrough season in 2018, winning three ATP titles and scoring the most wins on the Tour on the hard court to enter the top-20. The start of the new season has been great for the Russian as well, reaching the final in Brisbane and advancing into the fourth round of the Australian Open where he lost to Novak Djokovic in four sets after three hours and 15 minutes. Now, Daniil will have to make a long trip to Biel in Switzerland where he will defend the colors of his country in the very first Davis Cup Qualifiers round, competing against a weak home squad that will have to battle without Stan Wawrinka or Roger Federer.
Backed by Karen Khachanov, Andrey Rublev and Evgeny Donskoy, Medvedev is confident about his country's performance but they will have to be careful, losing three of the last four Davis Cup ties and not taking anything for granted against the Swiss as well. Also, the youngster likes the new Davis Cup format (best of three matches, two-day action and only two rounds per year) and he will try to deliver two singles wins against Henri Laaksonen, Marc-Andrea Huesler, Sandro Ehrat or Jakub Paul and carry his team towards Davis Cup finals in November in Madrid.
This will be the third consecutive year for the Russian in Davis Cup, scoring three wins from six ties so far and delivering the deciding point against Egor Gerasimov in a tight 3-2 win over Belarus in September.
“I’m really happy about the new format and I’m looking forward to playing it,” Medvedev said. We need to prove that we are favorites and we need to win the tie as fast as we can. Davis Cup is never easy. We’ve already seen it in many matches. We’re going there to try and show our level. That tie versus Belarus was a tough one. We were 2-1 down, with me and Karen Khachanov playing the decisive matches. Karen was in amazing form at that moment after the US Open. I was a little bit sick before the matches, not feeling perfect, and to win against a player that played amazing in that tie meant a lot to me.
I was so happy to finally get a decisive point and win our first tie after three defeats. The tie against Switzerland depends on the crowd as well. When we played Hungary in September 2017, there were not so many people for Hungary, but those that were there were really good supporters. We didn’t like it, but they were great supporters. It depends on the crowd, it depends on the atmosphere. When I made my Davis Cup debut in Serbia there were 4,000 people there, but I liked so much the atmosphere.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2HHmh51
No comments