While there’s no questioning the consistent quality of Daniil Medvedev’s tennis and achievements during an outstanding year on tour, perhaps it will be the Russian’s dramatic and, at times, bewildering rollercoaster ride to the US Open final in September that will live longest in the memory.
The 23-year-old arrived at Flushing Meadows on the back of three finals in four weeks, a run that included his first at a Masters 1000 event in Canada and seven days later his maiden trophy at that level in Cincinnati. He had won 14 of his last 16 matches during 20 whirlwind days of tennis.
While logic suggested his battered 6ft 6in frame would finally give way at the last major of the year, somehow he kept going, dragging victory after unlikely victory from a body that at times appeared to be held together by kinesio tape. Despite mental fatigue, cramps, and severe shoulder and leg injuries he kept winning.
And then there was the Russian’s pantomime villain act, goading the New York crowd along the way.
After a hostile Louis Armstrong stadium had booed him throughout most of his third round victory over Feliciano Lopez he riled them further in his on-court post-match interview: “I want all of you to know, when you sleep tonight, I won because of you,” he teased amid the din.
When he walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium to face Stan Wawrinka in the quarterfinals days later, he was greeted by another deafening chorus of jeers. Yet, even his battle with the locals would be one that would ultimately end in victory.
After Rafael Nadal had finally finished Medvedev off after five sets of thrilling tennis in a title decider that lasted nearly five hours, the Russian had won over a new set of fans with his quirky character, mischievous sense of humour and refreshing honesty.
“I know earlier in the tournament I said some things kind of in a bad way,” he told a 24,000-capacity crowd during the trophy presentation. “Now I’m saying it in a good way. It’s because of your energy guys I was here in the final.”
Four successive finals soon became five when he won on home soil in St Petersburg and he made it six finals in a row and back-to-back Masters trophies when he collected the seventh ATP title of his career in Shanghai.
By his own admission, his late-season form fell away - a victim of his own success during the craziest of summers - but his end-of-year report card spoke for itself.
The Monte Carlo-based Muscovite led the tour with 59 match wins, recorded the most hard-court victories, made the season-ending championships for the first time, reached nine finals, collected four trophies, peaked at a career-high ranking of No.4 and appeared in his first Grand Slam final.
The hard yards had been done under the blazing sun of the Cote d’Azure. Medvedev’s family moved to the south of France when he was 18 and since then the Russian has been based at a small training facility - Elite Tennis Center - in Cannes.
His travelling coach for the last two seasons, quietly-spoken Frenchman Gilles Cervara, hit with Medvedev the very first day he walked through the gates of the club in May 2014 and has since learned to expect the unexpected.
“When you think, ‘This shot you have to play crosscourt’, Daniil will go down the line. And when you think, ‘This shot you will go down the line’, he will play crosscourt,” laughed the Frenchman during a recent interview with ATP Tennis Radio.
The rate at which Medvedev has scaled the rankings since Cervara began travelling with him full-time has also come as a surprise.
“I don’t think I could’ve believed this,” he admitted while reflecting on his achievements this summer. “In Tokyo [in 2017] I had just started to work with Daniil full-time, he was around 60 or 65 in the world and hadn’t won so many matches. I had a vision and a strategy to train him but I didn’t have this idea that he could be [No.5].”
The season might have ended on a low - Medvedev didn’t win another match after lifting the Shanghai title - but once mind and body are refreshed, most will expect more of the devastating mid-summer tennis that suggests it could be the Russian who is the first of the younger generation to wrestle a Grand Slam trophy from the arms of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
That trio has won the last 12 majors.
“It’s always a question with my team for the next year to come,” Medvedev says.
“After the end of the year, we always try to analyse what parts of the season we could have done better [and] what we could do better overall. [But] we are also trying to do the same thing, practise as hard as I can and work physically to be 100 per cent fit.”