Stat of the Day: Daniil Medvedev records 15th win in a row, 20th win of the year
He's the first player to win 20 matches this year, male OR female, after his opening-round victory at Indian Wells.
It was a double milestone kind of night for Daniil Medvedev at Indian Wells on Friday night, as he defeated Brandon Nakashima in his opening match at the Masters 1000 event, 6-4, 6-3, to not only extend his winning streak to 15 matches in a row, but also to record his 20th win of the year.
He was asked afterwards about his hot streak, which has taken him to three consecutive titles at Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai.
“It’s always better to be in confidence,” he said. “Indian Wells is a place where I haven’t shown my best tennis, so confidence is really important here, and I hope it’s going to help me like today, because the match was pretty tight and he had a lot of break points. You can lose matches like this, but I sometimes managed to make an ace or win a long rally.
"Hopefully this confidence can keep me going further and further.”
Medvedev is the first man this year to record 20 tour-level wins.
MOST WINS THIS YEAR (men, tour-level):
20: Daniil Medvedev
19: Cam Norrie
15: Novak Djokovic
14: Taylor Fritz
13: Stefanos Tsitsipas
He’s actually the first player, period, to record 20 tour-level wins this year—Caroline Garcia and Belinda Bencic are the match win leaders on the women’s tour so far this year with 15 victories each.
The No. 48-ranked Nakashima had his chances against Medvedev, bringing up a total of six break points, all in the second set—but the No. 6-ranked Russian saved them all and converted three of his own seven break chances en route to the one-hour, 26-minute victory.
Medvedev finished with 23 winners to 18 unforced errors.
“Brandon played well. It’s probably the slowest conditions on hard courts on tour in the year, so many, many points are just whoever misses first, because you cannot do much. You have to find this balance where you still try to make the point, otherwise you’re going to be in trouble, but also don’t miss—and I managed to do it just a little bit better than him.”
Awaiting Medvedev in the third round will be No. 85-ranked Ilya Ivashka. The Russian is 3-1 against the Belarusian at tour-level, losing a Davis Cup match in 2018 but winning their last three meetings in straight sets, at Paris in 2021 and ’s-Hertogenbosch and Halle in 2022.