"Medvedev has a lot of room for improvement on clay" - admits his coach Cervara

Daniil Medvedev was about to kick-off his clay-court season at the 2021 Monte-Carlo Masters when a positive COVID-19 test prevented him from doing so.

Now, the Russian returned to training after successfully beating the virus and his coach Gilles Cervara spoke about how they approach the training. Medvedev's coach also revealed that they are still not sure about if he will be ready for the 2021 Roland Garros.

"He has been able to work for a week. The first few days we kept a close eye on the reaction of his heart to effort, the reaction of his lungs, we were very attentive to his health sensations – headaches, difficulty in exertion – in order to adjust our training demand."

"You don’t pick up like that overnight after a week off, especially after contracting a little-known virus," Medvedev's coach Gilles Cervara told Tennis Majors.

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"It is significant. When you see Stefanos Tsitsipas who has played 10 matches and the certainty he has created by winning nine, he is not the only one. The extent of this delay is unknown. I shouldn’t compare us to other players, we just have to focus on our own goals, day by day, to get to the end of the road. I can’t be ahead of my player”. 

"We’ll do Madrid and Rome. These tournaments will reveal things that will allow us to discuss and choose what will happen just before Roland Garros. For our training and possibly to play another tournament. He has a lot of room for improvement on clay. He’s never won a match at Roland Garros. We’ve been seen joking about it before, which is good for not letting the pressure get to us, but I don’t feel like joking much anymore," Cervara added.