Novak Djokovic adjusted his game plan and tactics ahead of his Paris showdown with Medvedev in order to avoid the fate he suffered in New York.
Some sort of revenge happened for Djokovic at the
Paris Masters yesterday. The Serbian was able to come back and win the match for a historic 37th ATP 1000 Masters title. It was a hard-fought win by Djokovic who admitted after the match that he did change his game plan and tactics after the loss to Medvedev in New York.
Asked about it he said:
“That was definitely part of the tactical plan and strategy. To try to take away the time from Daniil, mix
it up, put some variety in my game, play serve and volley and open the
court, because he stands really far back, so, you know, he puts a lot of
returns back in play."
Djokovic also praised Medvedev for his ability to stay in the point:
“As I said previously, he’s just so good in staying in the point and making you suffer and forcing you to do an unforced error. So,
you have to have, in a way, a controlled aggression against him. I
managed to do that. I managed to have quite a good success rate on the
net, particularly in those serve-and-volley points when I was trying to
take away the time from him.!
He finished it off by saying that he believes this is the way to play despite it not working always:
“I wanted to keep him on his toes so he doesn’t know what’s coming up next, to be a little bit unpredictable. You need to do it against him, he likes the pace, he likes the tempo. Doesn’t work always, but I think this is the right game plan.”