By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday October 9, 2024
The connection between Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas was fairly dangerous from the beginning. Their first assembly at Miami in 2018 went viral due to the dangerous blood, and within the years that adopted it remained fairly frosty.
However lately, due to some high quality time spent on the identical Laver Cup crew, and the knowledge that comes with age, the pair are in a significantly better place.
Tsitsipas spoke of his emotions for the previous World No.1 this week, forward of their spherical of 16 encounter in Shanghai (gained by Medvedev, 7-6(3), 6-3 – highlights beneath).
“I think about him somebody that I respect on the tour, way more than I did earlier than,” Tsitsipas mentioned. “We have had some heated issues on the court docket up to now, however I believe these issues have resolved themselves over time, and clearly we additionally had the time to talk about these issues and have a typical understanding of why this stuff occur.”
26-year-old Tsitsipas says it’s higher to place the dangerous blood within the rearview. Right here’s how he explains it.
“I all the time wish to resolve issues like that, I do not wish to depart them,” he mentioned. “It took some time, clearly, a fairly very long time, nevertheless it’s good to form of get it out of the best way, and ensure our tennis brings peace as an alternative of a conflict. It is a conflict zone while you’re on the market on the court docket making an attempt to, clearly, struggle your greatest and clearly attempt to get the win, however I really feel like tennis ought to unite as an alternative of separate.”
Tsitsipas says that he has gained a terrific appreciation for Medvedev’s tennis through the years, and admits that he didn’t all the time see the great thing about the Russian’s sport.
“I believe there are a variety of issues that he has introduced into the sport which are, I’d think about, fairly unorthodox, as a result of you have not seen a variety of gamers up to now, play the best way that he does,” he mentioned. “Which is, actually, after fascinated by it, up to now I may need mentioned some imply stuff about his sport, however after really fascinated by these issues, I believe I used to be fully flawed in that.
“There’s a variety of attention-grabbing issues in his sport that he brings which are very totally different from different gamers. I believe that is what makes him distinctive as a participant, since you do not see gamers like him fairly often, and it offers tennis one other dimension when it comes to how it may be performed and the way in another way it may be crafted. So, that is undoubtedly one thing that he has supplied up to now to the sport, and I believe a variety of generations are going to keep in mind that.”
