Medvedev, the World No. 3 who won’t say he’s back
Fresh off his best tournament in years, Daniil Medvedev sat down with journalist Sofya Tartakova to explain, at length, why you shouldn’t read too much into it.
Daniil Medvedev, Indian Wells 2026 | © Zuma / PsNewz
Daniil Medvedev had just played some of the best tennis of his recent years. He had dismantled Carlos Alcaraz, pushed Jannik Sinner to a double tiebreak, got the third rank at the ATP Race and walked off the Indian Wells court to a standing ovation. And when asked, in a characteristically candid sit-down with Russian journalist Sofya Tartakova on her Bolshe! channel, whether he was back — truly back — he looked almost offended by the optimism.
“It can always go away,” he said. “It can return just as randomly.” This is Medvedev’s version of a victory lap.
What makes the Indian Wells run different – and what Tartakova pressed him on — is not the result but the explanation he gives for it. By his own account, he arrived in Dubai, two weeks before Indian Wells, barely able to play Worse, he said, than the low before last year’s US Open.
Then something clicked. He cannot fully explain it, and crucially, he does not pretend to. “In Dubai before the tournament I couldn’t hit a single ball into the court at all,” he told Tartakova. “And then I somehow managed to catch something, some confidence.” Indian Wells followed that wave. Whether Miami, this week, will too, he genuinely doesn’t know.
The gap between him and the top two, he says, is not what people assume. In the final he matched Sinner on the backhand, competed in the rallies, served better than Alcaraz the day before. The margins were visible and real. But Sinner’s serve – better, Medvedev noted, than anyone he had faced all year – applied a pressure that accumulated quietly across two and a half hours.
Medvedev : “They play like that all year. I have more lapses.”
“It puts pressure on you, you get tired,” he said. “And I think it was much the same for Carlos yesterday.” What Sinner and Alcaraz have that he doesn’t, he says plainly, is not a different level – it’s a sustained one. “They play like that all year. I have more lapses.” To beat them requires his absolute best, and them being ever so slightly off. He names that margin without self-pity, which is what makes it interesting.
The second set tiebreak still stings. He had it at 4-0. A net cord at 4-2 went against him in a rally he felt he was controlling. Then, at 5-4, Sinner produced what Medvedev called simply “an insane rally, as happens.” Two points. That was the match, won 7-6, 7-6 by the Italian. “It’s naturally disappointing,” he said, “but it’s tennis, it happens. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”
His coach Thomas Johansson was audible throughout the final from the player’s box, telling him to step into the court on the return. Medvedev heard everything and tried to apply it. But he is clear-eyed about what coaching from the stands can and cannot do.
“He prompts you from his side, but he knows that you will be the one deciding. It’s not like he told you to try for a winner on the next return and you go – all okay, next return a winner.” What he values in working with Johansson, he says, is simpler than tactics: he listens, and he believes what he hears. The rest is on him.
“Continue in Miami”
Asked by Tartakova whether any of this – the level, the results, the rivalry with the best two players in the world — actually gives him pleasure, his answer is the most revealing thing in the interview. Not exactly, he says. Tennis is work. Winning a match is a bonus – a 13th salary, he offers, smiling.
Real pleasure, the kind he can name, is karting once a year or a good dessert somewhere. What he feels when his tennis works is something quieter and more professional than pleasure. “It’s pleasant when your work works,” he said. “Butter being buttery.” Winning a tournament gets closest to the real thing. Everything else is the job doing what it should.
Medvedev flew to Miami the day after the final. His bags did not, prompting a politely exasperated message to United Airlines on social media from a man who, one assumes, has things he needs before the Miami Open begins.”In Miami I will try to continue this, he said. And usually I succeed when I’ve caught this wave. But again, if you look at 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2023, there were matches, tournaments, and moments when it all disappeared. “
“So you just have to keep working, keep trying. The more you can catch a wave like here and in Dubai, the higher you will be in the rankings, the more chances you will have to beat Carlos, Jannik, and other big players.”
The wave is there. He can feel it. Whether it carries him through Miami or vanishes between now and the first round, Daniil Medvedev would like you to know: he told you so either way.
