By Giri Nathan
So many narratives swirl around the US Open that it’s somehow possible to overlook its 2021 men’s champion. Not me, though—never underestimate Daniil Medvedev on a hard court, where he can wriggle around in the deepest reaches of the court and torment his opponents with malevolent patience. But it’s easy to see why the Octopus has slipped from his past prominence. Heading into the tournament, the rivalry between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz had flared so bright that Medvedev’s pre-Open press was packed with questions about the only two guys ranked above him.
That was fine, because Medvedev is the best interview on the men’s tour—he just blurts out whatever he’s thinking, and he seems to be better at thinking than most—and because he’s been following that rivalry like one of us. He usually doesn’t watch matches after losing at a tournament, but he’d been following the score of their Wimbledon final on his phone and couldn’t resist its allure. “At one moment I saw they had a 30-minute game,” he said. “I turned it on.” He tuned in to their Cincinnati final, too: “It was not easy to play in Cincinnati. The balls are tough to control. They don’t care about this. They still play their best. All this championship points saved, we go to the tiebreak. Was amazing to see.”