On 8 March 2016, the ATP unveiled its #NextGen campaign, featuring 14 top-200 players, aged 21 and under, who were “striving to pose a future threat to the well-established hierarchy".
Then aged 20, Daniil Medvedev was ranked No.280, and thus did not feature in the campaign video or artwork.
Yet now, he’s the highest-ranked of that cohort, the only one to reach a Grand Slam final, and arguably the biggest threat to the established order.
X-factor
What separates Medvedev from his contemporaries is his competitive persona.
The 24-year-old is a Jekyll-and-Hyde case, explaining: “In life I'm quite calm guy and I think I'm kind to people. And on the court ... I could get crazy, say many bad things to crowd, to referee.”
Both sides were on show during his breakout tournament at last year’s US Open.
Following a cantankerous third-round win over Feliciano Lopez, he drank in the crowd’s boos in an iconic on-court interview, announcing: “I want all of you to know – when you sleep tonight, I won because of you. The more you do this (booing), the more I will win, for you guys.”
Yet incredibly, the further he advanced, the more he won back the New York crowd, very nearly stealing the show in a dramatic five-set final loss to Rafael Nadal.
A refreshing personality, Medvedev is both candid and comedic in interviews.
And he’s also an unorthodox player, with distinctive technique and the ability to confound opponents when switching from grinding, relentless consistency to surprisingly brute power.
On court
This versatility saw Medvedev rapidly scale the rankings; he cracked the top 100 in late 2016 and the top 50 six months later, helped by reaching his first ATP final in Chennai in January 2017.
He broke through for his first ATP title in Sydney a year later, and went on to win two more trophies to end 2018 ranked 16th.
But it was in 2019 when he attained a significantly higher level.
The Russian went on a tear after Wimbledon, winning 29 of his next 32 matches, claiming the Cincinnati and Shanghai Masters titles either side of his US Open final, and soaring into the top five.
He’s remained there ever since.
Notable stat
Medvedev reached six consecutive finals – Washington DC, Montreal, Cincinnati, US Open, St Petersburg and Shanghai – in 2019, joining Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray as the only active players to achieve such a feat.
Off court
Currently based in Monte Carlo, Medvedev left Moscow to develop his game during his teens in the south of France, and is now trilingual – he speaks Russian, English and French.
He married his girlfriend Daria in September 2018, lists chess and reading among his interests, and admits he can be a fanatical video gamer.
He said …
On watching the tribute to Rafael Nadal’s 19 major title wins at last year’s US Open: “When I was looking on the screen, and they were showing No.1, No.2 … No.19, I was like, if I would win, what would they show?” (laughter)
Experts are saying …
“He's very intelligent tennis player. With big serves and good movement and not too many unforced errors especially from the backhand corner, that puts him right up there as one of the best players in the world. I know he's someone who is still not yet satisfied, is going to keep going and try to reach even bigger heights. His game is very complete.” - Novak Djokovic