Daniil Medvedev believes the fact he and Dominic Thiem beat two of the greatest players in the history of the game at the ATP finals is good for the sport of tennis.
Both Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal exited the season-ending tournament at the semi-final stage on Saturday with Medvedev accounting for world No 2 Nadal's demise and Thiem beating world No 1 Djokovic.
It has been an excellent week for the so-called young guns as the Russian also beat Djokovic in the round-robin stage while Thiem defeated Nadal.
Medvedev admits a social media post in the build-up to semi-finals summed things up.
"The comment [that] got the most likes was, 'My mind is saying Dominic and Daniil will be in the final and my heart goes for Rafa and Novak,'" he said. "This time the mind won. It's great that we managed to beat two [of the] biggest players in the history of sport…
"I think it's super for tennis. We are starting to get to take our marks. Dominic won his first Slam [and he is] playing unbelievable tennis right now. [It's] not going to be easy. Hopefully I can play good like this. I for sure can cause him some troubles."
As for taking on the US Open champion in the final on Sunday, Medvedev is expecting a good match.
"The first two times on Centre Court [I practised here] was with him," he said. "We had good rallies, it was a really good level of tennis and I said to my coach, 'He can go far here.' I don't know if he said the same… but I am going to see him tomorrow [Sunday]."
- TEAMtalk media