By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, March 12, 2022
Daniil Medvedev reached premier peak in the desert.
Playing his first tournament as world No. 1 Medvedev swept Czech qualifier Tomas Machac 6-3, 6-2, in his Indian Wells opener.
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US Open champion Medvedev improved to 13-3 on the season.
While Medvedev is enjoying his time at the top, the Russian realizes his fifth Palm Springs appearance isn't a sight-seeing trip. If Medvedev fails to reach the BNP Paribas Open quarterfinals, then second-ranked Novak Djokovic will reclaim the top spot.
Asked to assess his strength, Medvedev cited consistency while identifying mentality as the primary area he's working on improving.
The man Hall of Famer John McEnroe calls "a chess master on court" said sharpening concentration will be key to his progress as a player.
"[I] want to improve in everything. But if we try to pick one thing, if we're talking about really being much better, that's always the mental part," Medvedev told the media in Indian Wells. "I feel like I can always be better, maybe learn from some of the greats because, well, many of them were better than me mentally, in many things.
"That's also the part of success. Comparing to even two years ago, three years ago, I'm much better right now in focusing on the match, just trying to win the match because that's the most important."
The Australian Open finalist says shot tolerance is his primary strength.
"If we talk about my tennis, I think, yeah, my greatest strengths is consistency," Medvedev said. "I think in tennis it's really important. You can hit a lot of winners, you can play real aggressive, but if you make one winner, one unforced errors, probably you're going to lose the match. You have to make maybe three winners and one unforced error or something like this.
"Yeah, I think I'm pretty good at keeping the ball in play."
Photo credit: Getty