Daniil Medvedev: Big trio key to improvement

Daniil Medvedev says competing against Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic has helped him to become a better player.

The world number five has enjoyed an incredible couple of years and heads to the US Open in good spirits as he looks to cause an upset. He kicked off 2018 in fine fashion by winning the Sydney International before adding the Winston-Salem Open and Japan Open to his CV.

Medvedev, who is priced at 15.00 to win the US Open, has carried that form through to 2019 and boasts victories at the Sofia Open and Cincinnati Masters, while he also made it to the final in Brisbane, Barcelona, Washington and Canada.

The Russian has yet to have a major impact at a Grand Slam event, having failed to go beyond round four, but he feels competing against the greats of the game has helped take his game to the next level.

Medvedev said: “I always said that it was about two years and a half ago where I said to myself, Okay, now I really need to dedicate my life to tennis even if it sounds boring. “It has worked a lot for me as you can see and that was the biggest change in my career and I would say that last six months nothing really clicked.

“It was going this way already at the end of last season. I was gaining experience, every big match I played against Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal I was gaining experience, I was taking it with me and at one moment I understood what I needed to do to win more matches.”