There can be no love relationship as sincere, heartfelt and intense as that between Daniil Medvedev and the New Yorkers. The audience whistles, he reacts with provocative gestures. Someone yells before serving to disturb him, he then says: “I don’t want to be the guy’s partner. Nobody can sleep if he yells ‘Vamos, Vamos, Vamos’ all night.” A young spectator casually strolls down the stairs instead of quickly looking for a seat as requested by the referee: “Tell me, are you stupid or what?” The woman throws him a sarcastic kiss on the hand, Medvedev rolls his eyes with a death look.
Anyone who has ever spent an hour in this city knows that this is how New Yorkers communicate when they respect each other. “Fuck you” among drivers in Manhattan means: “All right, have a nice day too.”
Daniil Medvedev is a New Yorker and as such he plays his way through the tournament almost unnoticed. On Wednesday against buddy Andrei Rublev. In inhuman conditions – even when doing nothing you looked after 20 minutes as if you had jumped into a pool – he won after almost three hours. The game shouldn’t have lasted a minute longer, during which time Medvedev said: “One day someone will die, you’ll see.” Afterwards he said: “I don’t have a solution either, you can’t just stop the tournament for four days – I just want to have something said before something happens.” That’s how Medvedev is: radically honest, sometimes emotional and quick-tempered; afterwards, however, he reflects on himself and his sport.
The 2021 US Open winner has lost two sets so far, otherwise he dissects his opponents with this mixture of tactical finesse and relaxed efficiency. It almost seems as if he only communicates with the audience so that it doesn’t get too boring. Of course that will change now, in the semifinals he meets Carlos Alcaraz. It should be a tactically interesting, spectacular match – as it is when the most dominant player currently meets someone who, like Medvedev, runs everything and can counter at any time.
The wonderful thing about Medvedev, along with his unique style of play – he’s a hybrid of marathon runner and tactical genius – is his disarming self-reflection. He speaks openly about mistakes. For example after the lost set against Christopher O’Connell, when he had the tournament doctor come and when asked what he needed, said: “What you gave him before the set – I lost it.” He also does it when dealing with coach Gilles Cervara, who sometimes leaves during a game if Medvedev annoys him. And in dealing with your own nerves. In the spring he said about his behavior in Indian Wells: “That wasn’t so good of me. I have to work on myself and ask: what’s in it for me if I behave like this? So don’t just say, ‘It has to get better ‘ – but also do it.”
And he does it when dealing with New York. He has a message for those who don’t want to understand this wonderful love affair: “Now it’s again: Oh my God, is he arguing with the audience again. That’s not true; my relationship with the people here is amazing.” The word can mean anything from amazing to grandiose, wondrous to magnificent, and of course Medvedev uses it precisely for that reason. Like a real New Yorker.