"Daniil lacked fire" says Medvedev's coach Gilles Cervara on Australian Open final loss

He got his 'revenge' a couple of days ago when he defeated the same Novak Djokovic in the US Open final denying him a historic achievement. It was the result of many hard-working years that Medvedev put in as well as a culmination of great form leading up to this event. His coach Gilles Cervara spoke to the media after his triumph touching upon the Australian Open loss:

“After the final in Australia, we had the feeling that Daniil (Medvedev) didn’t have this fire that can help your game to be much stronger, especially against a player like Novak. This had to change for sure to play this final at another level. Our feeling yesterday and today was that he was ready to compete and be at a high level.”

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Cervara also praised Novak Djokovic and his ability to adapt to any opponent which is why they had to change things for this final. He said:

“Of course, it’s easy to say there is not a magic thing. You have to play at your best, to have quality in your shots, also to know that strategy can change during the match because Novak will adapt during the match. You have to feel when you need to do something different. In the game, we had a couple of strategies. Especially sometimes to play more down the middle, to not open so much angle and to run a lot. Of course, to serve good was one of the keys. He served very good.”

And the serve was indeed very good. Medvedev dropped only a handful of 1st serve points in the opening set which set the tone for the rest of the match. He was also able to fend off break points with crucial serves as well. Cervara said his serve won him the match and it's hard to say otherwise:

“He won because his level on serve was very high. That’s what he needs to do. We took more time to work on this shot. Every day I got my goals in my practices to make him be at his best level on serve.”