Daniil Medvedev is one of those hoping to dethrone Novak Djokovic in 2024, but he understands that it's not going to be easy.
One of the most defining things about Novak Djokovic is his mental strength. It's not something he was born with but rather something he worked on really hard.
He's talked about it often and some of the methods he uses to remain calm while admitting that he's as nervous as anybody else. After all, as superhuman as Djokovic is, he's actually just a human.
There are many who would like to dethrone him in 2024, like Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Holger Rune, and Daniil Medvedev, but it's going to be tough. Medvedev knows it best, as he talked about it to Gulf News during his stay in Abu Dhabi.
Novak does this almost all the seasons in his career. No matter if it is Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Me, Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner, he gets lots of wins and he has won many Grand Slams.
This year Jannik beat him twice and I beat him in the final in Dubai, but we want to beat him more and create a small doubt in his mind and to achieve more success against him. Right now, that is not the case and we are going to try to do it.
Medvedev said something brilliant in that interview, as you won't be able to beat Djokovic at his mental games. He's too good for that, but you can slowly chip away and create a sliver of doubt.
We've seen that already in the matchup against Sinner, where Djokovic showed some doubt, which cost him the match at the Davis Cup.
When you're facing one of the best players ever you have to find any kind of edge because there won't be many. Nobody knows that better than Medvedev.