Former champion Daniil Medvedev prepared to deal with weight of expectations in Canada

Daniil Medvedev is aware that he will always be among the favourites when the tour switches to hard courts.

However, with that expectation comes a certain pressure to perform, which Medvedev said he is prepared to deal with.

Medvedev won the National Bank Open in Toronto in 2021 among the 18 titles he has claimed on hard courts.

“I love this tournament,” Medvedev said.

“I remember actually playing well, even [five] years ago, I lost to [Alexander] Zverev, but I passed qualies, beat Felix. It was a crazy match, so very good memories so far from Toronto.

“So it’s a little bit of pressure where I’ll have to cope with it and to try to go through it. I feel like I have done it many times in my career, but it’s going to be here again and again. So I have to deal with it.”

Medvedev is delighted to be back on hard courts and not just because the surface suits his style.

He feels that he develops aches and pains when he plays on other surfaces because he tries to shoehorn his natural style into his game on clay and grass.

“I’m really happy because that’s just my favourite surface, so I feel great on it. I feel like my game suits it very well, I feel it even in practice,” said Medvedev.

“And this doesn’t mean everything, you can still lose. In a way it’s easy to lose. There are so many players that want to win.

“But I love to play on hard courts. My body feels the best on it. So this is very important.

“I feel like on clay and grass, I have more things concerning my body like I would have pain here, there, probably because I would do some shots not in a good way or something like this.

“On hard courts I feel very fluid. So really happy. And let’s see how it goes.”

Medvedev enjoyed a rare training session with world No 1 Carlos Alcaraz but he has warned not to expect it to be repeated too often.

“For sure, we’re not going to practise too often because hopefully we can play finals, semi-finals and more to come like two times this year already,” Medvedev said.

“So usually you don’t try this every day with your rivals, but it can happen once, twice, three times per year. And it was again a great practice. I think we both enjoyed it.”

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