Daniil Medvedev dealt with an injury in his quarter-final match at the 2024 Shanghai Masters against Jannik Sinner and he spoke about it after the match.
Already after his match against Stefanos Tsitsipas, it was obvious that the Russian player was struggling with some kind of injury. His shoulder seemingly impacted him against Tsitsipas, and with the match against the World No. 1 up next, it wasn’t clear how Medvedev’s shoulder would hold up.
He chose to play the match, and even despite calling for two medical time-outs during it, Medvedev also chose to finish the match standing instead of retiring to preserve his health for the remainder of the season.
The end result was a loss in two sets, 1-6, 4-6, as Sinner proved to be too strong. Of course, the Russian player’s injury was also to partially blame for the loss, and that’s why he was asked about it immediately after the match.
Also, when shaking his hand at the net, Sinner shared nice words of encouragement with Medvedev, recognizing his injury. Following the match, the former World No. 1 explained that he had already started feeling his shoulder in the match against Tsitsipas.
“I, unfortunately, had pain on my shoulder, which I didn’t think I would have. It started yesterday during the match, but I thought it was nothing, and I still think, well, I still hope it’s nothing serious, I’ll have to do the checks tomorrow.”
Medvedev then explained how exactly the injury affected him. It prevented him from serving as he wanted to, which was crucial against a player like Sinner, who is rarely broken.
“But it didn’t let me serve the way I wanted, and with Jannik serve is important, because he’s a great server now, it’s tough to break him, so you need to serve well, and without the serve it’s tough.”
In addition, the pain not only limited his ability to serve as he wanted to but also impacted his energy levels, as playing injured isn’t comparable to playing fully healthy and energized.
“Then when you have pain, the energy’s not the same. So, second set I tried to, like, pump my energy up, and it did help me a bit, but still, without the serve, it’s tough to beat Jannik, and that’s what happened.”
Of course, Medvedev didn’t want to blame the loss on the injury. He knew that probably the best player on the ATP Tour at the moment was standing on the opposite side of the net, and he was quick to give Sinner credit for the win.
The Russian player spoke about how the Italian player improved, specifically highlighting the 23-year-old’s consistency and serve as something that helped him to win.
“I mean, he plays well, and I think at this exact moment him and Carlos are probably the best in the world. He serves well, he serves much better than before, and even today, you know, where everything was going a little bit his side, the few moments where I could maybe have a look at something, he served very big.”
“He’s very consistent, yeah, I mean, he’s a great player. I think he has like some crazy stats where he almost never loses before quarterfinals, etcetera, so, yeah, he’s a great player.”
