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 as of late, 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 a lot better place.
Tsitsipas spoke of his emotions for the previous World No.1 this week, forward of their spherical of 16 encounter in Shanghai (received by Medvedev, 7-6(3), 6-3 – highlights under).
“I take into account him somebody that I respect on the tour, rather more than I did earlier than,” Tsitsipas stated. “We have had some heated issues on the court docket previously, however I feel these issues have resolved themselves over time, and clearly we additionally had the time to discuss these issues and have a standard understanding of why these items 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 go away them,” he stated. “It took some time, clearly, a reasonably very long time, nevertheless it’s good to form of get it out of the way in which, and ensure our tennis brings peace as a substitute of a struggle. It is a struggle zone while you’re on the market on the court docket making an attempt to, clearly, battle your finest and clearly attempt to get the win, however I really feel like tennis ought to unite as a substitute of separate.”
Tsitsipas says that he has gained an excellent appreciation for Medvedev’s tennis over time, and admits that he didn’t all the time see the great thing about the Russian’s sport.
“I feel there are plenty of issues that he has introduced into the sport which can be, I might take into account, fairly unorthodox, as a result of you have not seen plenty of gamers previously, play the way in which that he does,” he stated. “Which is, in actual fact, after occupied with it, previously I may need stated some imply stuff about his sport, however after truly occupied with these issues, I feel I used to be utterly flawed in that.
“There’s plenty of attention-grabbing issues in his sport that he brings which can be very completely different from different gamers. I feel 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 by way of how it may be performed and the way in another way it may be crafted. So, that is positively one thing that he has provided up to now to the sport, and I feel plenty of generations are going to do not forget that.”