“These balls are not good enough for professional tennis,” Daniil Medvedev expressed frustration with the quality of the balls during his Shanghai Masters opening-round match against Thiago Seyboth Wild. Despite his struggles, Medvedev cruised past him and continued with the same momentum against his next opponent, Matteo Arnaldi. But after his second round match, he made a strange admission. All while hinting at the ball’s pace’s strategic advantage towards the “best players in the world”!

During his first-round matchup, Medvedev criticized the organizers, saying, “This is one of the biggest tournaments in the world, and the balls are destroyed after 5 games. No pressure at all.” But nothing changed. Despite winning the match against Arnaldi by 7-5, 4-6, 4-6, the fifth seed’s disappointment was palpable once again.

“Nice balls,” he wrote with the marker pen on the tennis balls and showed it on TV with a smile out of frustration. Furthermore, after the match, a reporter asked him, “What are you changing? The other players are changing given the balls, that you said you don’t like so much. What are you changing to get the best of this situation?” To this, the Russian revealed his hopelessness on the matter, saying,

“I don’t think anyone is changing.” Per him, the “dead balls” favor players who can utilize them to their “benefit.:” “Some have better quality with this. Some don’t.” Mentioning Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, he further added, “Actually, the two best players at doing this.. they’re already the best players in the world.. and I’m sure they would be without the balls, but with these balls.. they’re the only players who can generate crazy power. It’s Jannik and Carlos. It gives them an extra edge.”

Medvedev, who leads against Sinner by 7-6 (in H2H), admitted, “I try to get this power, which I’ve never had since I was young. Because of the way my body type is.” Per him, he doesn’t have “the explosiveness,” making it challenging to generate the power “when the ball is stopped.” Furthermore, Medvedev, who has defeated Alcaraz twice(out of 8 occasions), admitted that, “I try to do what I can. I still play not bad. I’m fighting and I wanna go all the way.”

Medvedev, who lost against Sinner in the Australian Open finals and then in the US Open QFs, has yet to claim a title this season. Nevertheless, the 28-year-old player, who had an Indian Wells final-round defeat against Alcaraz this year, has now reached the round-of-16 match in Shanghai. But his recent statements have ignited a new controversy in tennis and have reminded fans about his similar comment about the balls in Beijing (last year)!

“It becomes like a grapefruit,” said Daniil Medvedev during his 2023 China Open campaign!

Last year, concerns about the quality of the tennis balls used in the match overshadowed Daniil Medvedev’s quarterfinal appearance in the China Open. After a slow start against Alex De Minaur in the round of 16, Medvedev found his rhythm in the second set. He later attributed his initial struggles to the balls, describing them as ‘fluffier’ and ‘like a grapefruit: “As soon as you play some shots with them, they go very big, much (fluffier)… it becomes like a grapefruit.”

The 2021 US Open champion further added, “We’re basically playing 30-shot rallies because it’s almost impossible to hit a winner. With these balls, you have to be 100 percent on every point, until the last point of the match. I managed to do it well so this, I’m happy about.” Despite that, he reached the final round in Beijing only to face a defeat against Sinner! 

Moreover, even during his 2023 Australian Open tournament, the Russian, who faced a wrist injury at the time, confessed that the balls used there were not “good.” Now, as the Shanghai tournament unfolds, fans will be closely watching Daniil Medvedev’s ways to navigate the challenging conditions!