ACAPULCO.- In Mexico, the watershed with the greatest impact occurs to change history when talking about number one in the world. Daniil Medvedev broke the tradition of seeing the same Big 4 names on that site. At the moment, and for 17 years the names were Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
“I’ve gotten so many messages. I can’t believe this is happening (about being number one). It’s been a roller coaster of emotions today.
The tennis tour is a very friendly sport, we congratulate each other in competitions whether they are from the ATP Challenger or ATP Tour”, he said after reaching the Semifinal in Acapulco, after defeating the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka in 1 hour 10 minutes.
The Russian tennis player will have his first confrontation in Mexico against Rafael Nadal, who knocked out the American Tommy Paul in the quarterfinals.
“It would be good if it’s against Rafael Nadal. Always playing against the Big 3 is an honour, great challenge, I’ve played against them before. I try to play the best tennis possible, I want to beat the Big 3, I’ve only been able to beat Novak. I haven’t been strong enough but there are opportunities to improve.”
Daniil and Rafa met in the Australian Open final a couple of months ago, but this time the Spaniard finds himself in a venue where he has won three of his six appearances.
Since a year ago Medvedev was called the “Top 10 destroyer”, since then, there is no active player outside of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, who has a better winning percentage against the top 10 players in the ranking. According to Infosys ATP Performance Zone, the Big 4 have played in a type of “own league against active players”. Djokovic had led the way with a winning percentage of 68.3, with Nadal (64.7%) and not far behind were Federer (64.6%) and Murray at 55.1%. But Medvedev, at a younger age, is already making his mark against the best elite players.
Novak Djokovic spent 86 weeks in first place and lost it in Dubai to the Czech Jiri Vesely (123).
“My goal is to keep playing tennis, for as long as I really feel like it and for as long as I can play. As long as my body allows it, as long as the circumstances of my life allow it. I’m still motivated and it makes me angry when I lose a match, I care about winning each one, just like anyone else on Tour, regardless of age. In fact, I am happy to feel a lot of emotions every day because it means that I really want to be part of this sport, part of the Tour”, he said after losing the game.
In a measurement of forces against his successor, since 2017 they met 10 times, Medvedev won four. At 26, he also became the third Russian to be number one in the ranking; the first to achieve it were Yevgeny Kafelnikov (1999) and Marat Safin, the latter reaching the first position in the ranking for 9 weeks between the end of the year 2000 and the beginning of 2000, after beating Pete Sampras in the final of the United States Open in Early century.
Medvedev in four years of career with 13 titles comes from a full year 2021, after winning the US Open, Masters 1000 Canada, Mallorca and Marseille.
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