Players generally meet each and every different for the primary time whilst in combat on-court or in locker rooms all over the world, however within the 3rd spherical of the Madrid Open two on-line pals will stare each and every different down after years of enjoying Playstation at the identical facet. On Saturday, Daniil Medvedev reached the 3rd spherical with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Andrea Vavassori and he’s going to face Alexander Shevchenko.
“I know him really well,” mentioned Medvedev, the second one seed. “It’s funny because before I knew him in real life, we played Playstation together with our friends for six years in the same team, the same game.”
After years of operating in combination whilst enjoying Rainbow Six, they didn’t meet till the ATP Cup in January 2022, when Medvedev drafted Shevchenko in on the ultimate minute to exchange Russian avid gamers after a Covid outbreak within the crew. “I texted him, ‘Do you wanna come’? He made a visa for Australia in a single or two days. [It was] The first time he flew over to the continent, he used to be within the heart seat, and he needed to quarantine for 48 hours with the check and the whole lot.”
Medvedev has a difficult challenge against Shevchenko, a talented young player ranked 96th who pulled off a surprise 6-1, 6-1 win over Jiri Lehecka, but he has started his clay season positively.
After falling out of the top 10, Medvedev concluded his spring hardcourt revival by winning his fourth title in five tournament weeks at the Miami Open. Whether he can find a way to compete for the biggest tournaments on clay remains one of the biggest questions of his career. Still, he remains brutally honest about his relationship with the surface.
“Till a certain point in my career, even at Challenger level, I didn’t think I was bad on clay. And I was not bad. I had my first ATP 500 win on clay, against [Jan-Lennard] Struff, was an amazing match. I had some good wins later in my career,” he mentioned.
“It’s simply that at one second I discovered one thing on onerous courts that I controlled to win such a lot of titles, a grand slam, which I did not have in juniors and which I will’t to find on clay nonetheless. So that is why now I do not like clay; on onerous courts I discovered one thing however on clay I did not.”