ATP Tour

Medvedev recalls baby steps to 400 wins after hitting milestone in Halle

A total of 400 tour-level wins represents a lot of potential favourites to choose from for Daniil Medvedev.

The 29-year-old hit the milestone Wednesday by downing Quentin Halys 6-2, 7-5 at the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle. Medvedev, a former No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings and 20-time tour-level champion, later identified his 2021 US Open final triumph against Novak Djokovic as an obvious win that sticks in his memory. Yet he admitted he found it hard to narrow it down to just one.

“Honestly, if I had to choose one, I would say beating Novak to win the US Open, because it’s my only Grand Slam [title], but I could easily name like 20 really big ones in different aspects,” Medvedev told ATPTour.com. “For example, I remember a win against Hubi [Hurkacz] in Toronto in 2021. First set, I didn’t know what to do. He played good, I didn’t play my best, and he was absolutely all over the place and didn’t give me any chance. It was 6-2.

“I saved a break point early in the second set and I was saying to myself, ‘I’m not playing good, he’s playing amazing, there is no way I will win this match’. Then I managed to serve better, I won the tie-break somehow 7/5, finishing with an ace, and then I won Toronto, which gave me a confidence boost. I won the US Open two weeks later.”

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Medvedev’s 2-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(5) quarter-final win against Hurkacz in Toronto that year may not be etched in the memory of many fans nearly four years on. Yet the current World No. 11 says he sees his total win tally, and indeed his achievements in tennis as a whole, as a product of such small moments.

“There are many wins which by themselves don’t really represent anything,” said Medvedev. “But if you didn’t have them, maybe you would not have your first title, and you wouldn’t have the career you have.”

Perhaps more understandably, a 6-3, 6-1 win against Horacio Zeballos on the grass of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2016 also sticks in Medvedev’s memory. It was his first tour-level victory.

“I actually remember Zeballos talking about it to me,” recalled Medvedev. “He said that he just came after Roland Garros, so the transition [from clay to grass] was not easy. He was like, ‘OK, I’m playing some guy who is ranked like 250’, so he was kind of happy about it.

“Then I beat him good, so that was a fun moment and it was of course a great feeling. I was very young, so it made a lot of adrenalin and emotion come out, and I was very happy about it.”