Tennis-Russia’s Medvedev targets improvement after ‘6.5/10’ year

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(Reuters) – Daniil Medvedev said he needs to “build a better version” of himself after Thursday’s ATP Finals defeat to Jannik Sinner ensured the Russian will end the season without a title for the first time since 2017.

Former U.S. Open champion Medvedev was beaten 6-3 6-4 by world number one Sinner in his final group match, leaving him no chance of reaching the last four in the season-ending tournament in Turin.

“I want to be number one in the world, but I didn’t play well enough this year, by far. Jannik is playing much better. He proved it many times,” Medvedev told reporters.

“But I’m number four in the big tennis world. I’m super proud about that because, as I said, especially in the end of the year, I struggled throughout the whole year. Every practice, every match was a struggle for me.

“Before I would feel I had the edge on the opponent and win it easy. Now I needed to win three sets, tie-breaks, breaks in the end of the set. I would put it (season) somewhere on six and a half out of 10.”

Medvedev, who opted to skip ATP 250 events and only play in bigger tournaments this year, reached the final of the Australian Open and Indian Wells.

Asked about his plans for the pre-season, Medvedev said: “We’re going to try to really build something a little bit new. I see right now that it’s not good enough, especially against guys like Jannik and Carlos (Alcaraz).

“If we talk purely tactics, I feel like I played fine. It’s just execution… That’s what we’re going to work on a lot in pre-season, to build a little bit better version of myself, which is not easy when you’re 28 years old.

“About titles, I’m not that concerned. I could have gotten some different tournaments. I basically played three 500s this year and all the rest was Masters and Grand Slams.”

(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Neil Fullick)