Daniil Medvedev has shown his commitment to playing at the highest level as he failed to defend his title at the Miami Open. The world No. 4 has now gone 10 months without lifting a trophy. While it could be easy to drop down to smaller tournaments and win those, Medvedev would rather compete with the best at the biggest events.
Medvedev suffered a one-sided defeat to Jannik Sinner on Friday, going out in the semi-final of the Miami Open. It was a rematch of the 2023 final, where Medvedev beat the Italian to lift the trophy. It means that the only title that Medvedev has won in the last year came at the Rome Masters last May.
Since then, the 28-year-old has competed in five finals and lost them all, including in Indian Wells earlier this month. But Medvedev isn’t feeling too dejected by his title drought given that most of his losses have come against the best players in the world. “Well, it depends, because I’m trying, you know, to play the best tournaments in the world,” he said when asked if he was concerned by going 10 months without a trophy.
“I think if we look tournament by tournament, you know, I’m losing against big players. I have been in some finals and I lost against Sinner, [Novak] Djokovic, [Carlos] Alcaraz, and for sure I want to beat them and, let’s say, be better than them. But I didn’t manage to do it and I have to work on it either mentally or tennis-wise.”
Medvedev knows that he could avoid facing the top three players and have a better shot at lifting the trophy if he enters a smaller ATP 250 tournament. But the world No. 4 showed his champion mentality as he claimed he’d rather stick it out in the biggest events – something he is already planning to do during the clay season.
He continued: “You know, for example, on clay I’m going to play Monte-Carlo, Rome, Madrid, Roland Garros. It might be tough to get a title there, but, you know, yeah, if I would play ten 250s a year, I’d probably get some titles.
