Daniil Medvedev

Press Conference

D. MEDVEDEV/C. Alcaraz

6-3, 7-6

THE MODERATOR Congrats, Daniil. You must be happy to get back to the final here at Indian Wells after beating Carlos. Can you share what you're feeling?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, it's an amazing feeling to beat someone like Carlos, No. 1 in the world. In a way, when you play him, Jannik, Novak, doesn't matter the ranking. It's just a great feeling to play them, and to beat them, of course, is even better.

So super happy with my level today and looking forward for tomorrow, of course.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Great tournament. You were part of the original NextGen, Milan, nine years ago.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: The first one, the first one.

Q. Chung, Rublev. This generation, Sascha Zverev, Matteo Berrettini, only a few. Is this win maybe like a generational statement, like we are still here, we can still be competitive at the top level, beating No. 1s, these youngsters, Jannik and Carlos, they are not out of our reach, not yet?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, I don't care too much about the things, because I'm already, first of all, a bit too old. I'm not NextGen anymore, something.

I had a tough year last year, so even more perspective now I need to do my best, and that's kind of it, because Jannik and Carlos, far better than all of us you mentioned. Only one match we can beat them. Sascha was serving for the match in Australia, and you never know what would happen in the final if he won.

It's more about one match on a long-term career or season. I mean, they are so good, they are so much better than us. And Djokovic, Federer, Nadal were so much better than us.

But Djokovic, Nadal, and Jannik and Carlos are probably also better than all the ones that were there before. And they would struggle against them. It is what it is.

As I said on the court, maybe I play 10 matches against Carlos, probably I'm going to lose more than I'm gonna win. But whenever I go on court, I need to believe in myself, I need to do my best, and try to win as much as I can.

Q. You have been playing so aggressively, just so consistently. Carlos talked a lot about that in his press. For someone who hasn't historically played that way in your career, what effort, what does it take from you both physically in terms of expending energy, but also I imagine that's a lot of mental energy you're going to always be on the attack?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Well, it always has to be a balance, because I did try a bit in my career at one point to be, let's call it overaggressive, and it was not good. It was spending, as you say, too much energy, was not my style of playing, and I was getting crazy, breaking racquets, et cetera. I'm not talking about last year. It's not exactly the case last year what I was trying to do, but in general.

Right now, I'm in confidence and when I'm in confidence, I always said I feel like I'm an aggressive player, especially on my serve. It's a bit different on the return.

But even on the return, whenever I get the opportunity with one great return, and today was the same, I tried to dictate the point afterwards.

So today there was no plan to be, like, too aggressive, because that can cost you against Carlos, who is great on defense, so you can start making too many errors.

The plan was just to play the way I did with the whole previous matches, hit the ball great, put him in pressure, serve great, and it worked out well.

Q. Well done today. You said after your quarterfinal win that you're okay to play the villain or the antihero. Do you feel like you did that at all today?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, today, I mean, in a way where we speak about Carlos, No. 1 in the world, his winning streak, et cetera, maybe. But I think I was completely normal today. I mean, just playing my game. He was actually trying more to get the crowd and stuff like this, because, well, he needed it (smiling).

It's fun to play against Carlos, some fun points. I think I lost one where he made this crazy forehand. I won two maybe where I made him run a lot and he was always there, but then I managed to win.

So it's a lot of fun to play him. Look, I'm just trying to play my game and to do my best.

Q. What was your approach on his second serve?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Honestly, no, like, with everything else, just of course what you cannot do against Carlos is you cannot play in the middle and short. I mean, you're done. He can dropshot, he can hit winners, he can go to the net, you're done. You're out of the court.

That's the only way whenever he, first or second serve, of course try to put some pressure on him, so he gives you an opportunity to start the point and then try to see. Because as you saw, there was no one particular game plan, like go to his forehand or backhand.

I mean, I saved one breakpoint crucial in the second set going down the line, but that was not exactly my game plan. It's play the best shot at the best moment and try to hit better shots than he did, and I think many times I succeeded today.

Q. You said, there's a reel that you don't want to jump into the "I played the tennis of my life" stuff, but Jim Courier said that he didn't think that he saw you play that level since the beginning of the year. What's your opinion?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, I mean, first of all, sorry, just coming from Tennis Channel, so just talked about it, but no problem, I repeat, first of all, it's a big compliment from someone like Jim, because I think that Jim understands the game very well, like he's such, well, first of all, great player before, but also such a nice analyst of the game. And to hear these words, it's a big compliment.

But then it's very tough to draw conclusions in tennis, because if we look just one match at a time, my match against Novak in US Open that I won, or my match against Carlos that I won in US Open beating him, I was super-aggressive. I was hitting forehand winners, et cetera, I was running everywhere. So it was great, as well.

So as I said, I'm just, you know, trying my best, and sometimes my best can be low, as we saw, and sometimes it can be very high. When it's very high, I'm very happy, and to have a win like is a great feeling.

Of course, with my team, we're trying to adapt the game. But, again, I don't feel like I was super-aggressive or something. I could be back a little bit, I could be more on the front foot. I was serving well, so that was giving me the opportunity to be aggressive.

Yeah, just trying my best. If it's better than before, I'm happy, but it's also about the consistency throughout the year which brings you to No. 3, 2, 1 spots in the ranking, and that's also very important.

Q. At the previous press conference, you talked about the benefit of having a new coach, like you can get the new fresh air and the new perspective. Also, did you get Thomas, did he give you any, like, more specific advices or take any kind of tactical advices to you?

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: You mean today or in general?

Q. Okay, today and also in general, both.

DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Today not really, because again, if Carlos would have a weak spot, everyone would use it and he would not be on 16-0. Every coach tries to see the game. Every coach tries to adapt his player to the game. Carlos doesn't really have one, so you need to play your best, you need to serve well, et cetera.

No, we didn't do anything specific today. We talk before every match, before every opponent, but with nothing specific.

In general, same, I would not say he told me one thing where I went, Oh, my God, how did I not know this before? It change my life, it change my career.

It's just we work, we try to see which shot can work in general, in practice. We had a great preseason where we worked on a lot of small details, tried to improve the volley a lot. Even if maybe I don't need it today or yesterday because I still don't go a lot, I could need it at one point of the match, at one point of the tournament and stuff like this. We worked a lot on the serve which is working great this year in general. It's just general stuff. Happy with the way we work with him.