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Daniil Medvedev had been sceptical about Novak Djokovic’s comments on the fast courts in Shanghai. That was until he got a massive surprise when he stepped out onto the main Stadium court for the very first time. The fast surface has been the talk of the tournament this year, with all courts at the Shanghai Masters faster than in 2025. But Medvedev didn’t believe it until he came out to face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the fourth round.
The No. 5 seed had so far played his first two matches on Grandstand, the second court in Shanghai. And he had no idea what he was in for on the centre court until he started his pre-match knock-up against Tsitsipas. Still, Medvedev adjusted quickly and claimed a 6-4 7-5 victory to reach his fourth quarter-final here.
Reflecting on the match, the Russian said: “First of all, super strange, the court is like three times faster than the other one. And so when I heard Novak after his match, and he was like, ‘The court is so much faster than Beijing’, I was like, ‘Okay, let’s see’.
“[The next day] I played, but I played on Grandstand. I was like, ‘What is he talking about?’ I mean, it’s the same or even slower?”
But he needn’t have doubted Djokovic, who lost his opening match to Hubert Hurkacz on Friday – just three days after lifting a 102nd career title at the China Open in Beijing. At the time, the 39-year-old said: “After losing to 2023 champion Hurkacz in his opening match, Djokovic had said: “It’s a super quick surface, completely different from Beijing.”
Medvedev finally understood what the Serbian superstar had been talking about when he made his first appearance on Stadium this year. “This one, on the warm-up, I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s so fast!’” Medvedev continued.
“Which is good for me but I needed to reset, because it’s a completely different court than what I played before. But that helped me, I think. I played really aggressive, I put a lot of pressure on him, I managed to beat him.”
Commentators later revealed that there was barely any difference between the two courts in Shanghai, as Stadium has a court pace index of 43, while Grandstand has a CPI of 42.7. Still, even the finest margins made the difference at this level.
The 2019 champion is now through to a fourth career quarter-final in Shanghai, and wants to stay as long as possible. “I love Shanghai as a city. The road is long to the city but I enjoy it a lot and probably one of my favourite stops on tour, so just trying to stay as long as possible,” he smiled.
“Playing great. Again, today it’s a completely different game style than what you play on Grandstand, but I played great, served great. I think zero break points to save. So pretty happy about it.”
Medvedev has been on a stellar run in China this year, going 10-1 in matches so far. He won the title in Hangzhou and then reached the semi-finals in Beijing, where he was defaulted while facing Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals. Djokovic was serving for the match when the 30-year-old unintentionally hit a spectator with a ball and got disqualified. Now, he’s into the last eight here.
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