Good friends Daniil Medvedev and Karen Khachanov will fight for the quarter-final spot at the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters.
Most of the current generation of the Russian players know each other very well, growing together through the junior categories, and with a few of them succeeding on the ATP Tour, it's natural that they keep up.
Andrey Rublev is the godfather of Medvedev's child, and Khachanov attended the ceremony as well. That shows how close they are, but they also know how to forget that on a tennis court.
On the ATP Tour, Medvedev and Khachanov met six times, with Medvedev winning five of those matches, but even though Medvedev had much more success on the professional level, that wasn't always the case.
After his win over Gael Monfils, the former world no. 1 recalled times when the two used to meet in junior categories, saying he didn't know how to play against Khachanov, which was driving him crazy.
"Oh, my God. Talking about crazy, when I was younger I didn't like to play Karen. Now it's never, like, I don't like to play someone or I like to play someone. I think I lost maybe two, won four, I don't know exactly."
"When I was young I really didn't like to play him. At one point he was really better than me, so I was going crazy. I was getting, like, you know, code violations and stuff, because I was just not controlling myself well enough. That would be the craziest memories. I'm sure he remembers some of them, because he's a little bit more calm than me"
| Daniil Medvedev | Karen Khachanov | |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | H2H | 1 |
| 4 | Rank | 17 |
| 28 | Age | 27 |
| 19-4 | 2024 W/L | 14-6 |
| 352-140 | Career W/L | 258-185 |
Although clay is not Medvedev's preferred surface, and all of their previous meetings happened on the hard courts, the more experienced Russian should still be favoured in this match, even though his compatriot may take him to three sets.
Prediction: Daniil Medvedev to win in three sets.