Can Daniil Medvedev finally hit his straps on clay and fall in love with the red dirt?

Shahida Jacobs 03 Apr 2023 7:31 AM

Two years ago Daniil Medvedev admitted that “there’s nothing I like on clay”, but the self-confessed “hard-court specialist” is confident that he can carry his brilliant hard-court form over to the red dirt.

Medvedev is in red-hot form as he won three titles in February, lifting the Rotterdam Open, Qatar Open and Dubai Tennis Championships titles in the space of three weeks, while the month of March saw him finish runner-up to Carlos Alcaraz at the Indian Wells Open before he went all the way at the Miami Open to win a fifth ATP Masters 1000 trophy.

All five titles came on hard courts as Medvedev took his overall hard-court title tally to 18. In fact, only one of his trophies wasn’t won on the surface and that was on the grass in Mallorca in 2021.

No surprise then that the former US Open champion called himself a “hard-court specialist” during a rant in Indian Wells, but for now he has to get his sliding shoes on as the clay-court season officially gets underway on Monday.

Back in 2021 Medvedev admitted that he is not keen on the surface, saying: “Honestly, there’s nothing I like on clay. There’s always bad bounces, you’re dirty after playing. I really don’t enjoy playing on clay.”

The 27-year-old has reached only one final on the red dirt and that came in 2019 when he finished runner-up at the Barcelona Open, but he enjoyed some success at the Monte-Carlo Masters in 2019 as he took out Novak Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to reaching the semi-final.

“I know that I can play well on clay,” he said.

“I beat Novak once on clay. I actually beat Tsitsipas and Novak at the same tournament once, wow. That’s pretty good achievement on clay.

“But if on hard courts like here I feel like many of the matches I didn’t play my best tennis, but I managed to win them and the tournament. Clay court is tougher for me. If I don’t play my best tennis, I can lose much easier. So yeah, hopefully I can be at my best on clay court season.”

Reaching the final in Miami means he will head into his first tournament on clay – the Monte Carlo Masters – with very little practice under his belt, but the Russian believes it is all about changing his mentality.

“The earlier you lose in Miami, the more clay court practice you can get,” he told Tennis Channel.

“So the first tournament is going to be tough. I’m already preparing myself mentally not to lose my mind if I play really bad in Monte-Carlo.

“But maybe not? The confidence is still there. I am going to try my best and see how it goes.”