It is one thing to go into a major final believing you can win, quite another to know that you can. Not many players have come out on top in three of their five previous meetings with Novak Djokovic. Daniil Medvedev, the only active player with a winning record against the Serb when he has been ranked No 1, can lay claim to that distinction. Two of those victories came on hard courts, first in the Cincinnati Masters semi-finals two years ago, then in the round robin stage of last year’s ATP World Tour finals.
Notably, however, neither of those matches were finals, and neither were in grand slams. The more pertinent result is therefore the meeting between Djokovic and Medvedev at this year’s Australian Open, where Djokovic ran out a straight-sets winner. Medvedev feels he was ambushed in that match, ill-prepared for an unexpected tactical approach by Djokovic, who used drop shots and short, angled slices to draw the Russian out of his baseline comfort zone. This time, says Medvedev, he will be ready.
“He was playing different than the matches he did before [against] me, and I was kind of not ready for it. So now I am,” says the Russian. “[This time] it’s going to be more interesting in terms of tactics, what I’m going to prepare. I think the thing that I understand, I always give my best, but I feel like I didn’t leave my heart on the court in Melbourne. Even if, of course, I wanted to, there was something not turning up [in] this match. That’s what I’m going to try to do on Arthur Ashe, with hopefully 100% of fans. No matter the score, I’m just going to turn up the heat, if I can say, and try to do my best, even more than I did in Melbourne.”
The biggest unknown, of course, is how Djokovic will cope with the pressure of competing for the first calendar-year grand slam in more than half a century. Then again, we have been saying the same thing since the start of the tournament, and so far he seems to be doing just fine. For all his well-documented early struggles against Holger Rune, Kei Nishikori, Jenson Brooksby and Matteo Berrettini, not to mention his epic five-set tussle against Alexander Zverev in the semi-finals, Djokovic is still very much standing.
He has not always played his best tennis, but so adept has he become at analysing the nature of the challenge he faces on any given day and adapting his game accordingly, form has almost ceased to be a relevant consideration. That said, against Zverev he produced his best tennis of the tournament when he most needed it, and the heights he touched against the German demonstrated just what it will take to thwart his grand slam bid. As Zverev put it: “Mentally, he’s the best player ever to play the game.”
Can Medvedev reach the rarefied level required to win his first grand slam title? He has been the standout performer on the North American hard-court swing, winning the Toronto Masters, reaching the last four in Cincinnati, and making his way to a second US Open final in three years with minimal fuss. The Dutch qualifier Botic van de Zandschulp is the only one player to have taken a set off the world No 2, who has spent five hours and 35 minutes less on court than Djokovic. Should it go the distance, that could just give the Muscovite a vital edge.
Nor will Djokovic be able to afford the lapses in concentration that have punctuated his previous rounds. As Felix Auger-Aliassime remarked after his semi-final defeat by Medvedev: “Against a player like that, you don’t really have room for mistakes, room for losing your focus.” That is partly down to the quality of Medvedev’s serve, the pace and accuracy of which have caused his opponents all manner of problems on the slick, fast surface at Flushing Meadows.
“The serve, for me, is the thing I think is a bit underrated,” said Dan Evans, the world No 27, following his fourth-round defeat. “He goes through his service games very quickly.”
For Auger-Aliassime, it was “the precision, mostly” that caused problems. “There are players out there that serve even harder,” said the Canadian. “[But] the precision was crazy at times. He also served well whenever he needed to. That’s one thing that we don’t always pay attention as much as we should.”
Djokovic, of course, will be paying plenty of attention, and Medvedev will inevitably find his service games under harsher scrutiny against arguably the world’s best returner. Then again, the Russian is no slouch himself on that front, and Djokovic may find his own vastly improved delivery, the cornerstone of so much of his success this season, tested to the limit.
“He’s won a lot of matches on hard courts so far,” says Djokovic. “We played earlier this year in Australian Open finals. I know what’s expecting me. He’s already had a couple of grand slam finals behind him. I think experience-wise it’s different for him know. I’m sure he’s going to give it all to win it, to win his first slam.
“On the other side, I’ll be giving it all I possibly got in the tank to win this match. I’m focusing on recovery, recalibrating all the systems basically for Sunday. I’m not going to waste time or energy on anything that can just be a distraction and deplete me from the vital energy that I need.”
It promises to be an intriguing contest.