Indian Wells 2022: How Gael Monfils defeated Daniil Medvedev
On Monday, Gael Monfils pulled off the upset of the tournament so far by defeating Daniil Medvedev in three sets. We've taken a look at how he used his serve to find a way through the world #1.
Daniil Medvedev had been enjoying his new reign as world #1, seemingly in fine fettle after his first-round victory over Tomas Machac.
But that reign lasted all of three weeks before the affable Frenchman guaranteed he would be knocked down a spot come Monday as he won their third-round clash 4-6 6-3 6-1.
On paper, Gael Monfils has pulled off the upset of the Indian Wells Masters so far - 35 years old, ranked #28 in the world, had only ever beaten a world #1 once previously (2009 v Nadal in Doha) - but maybe it’s not as surprising as it first looks.
Let’s take a look at the tactics Monfils used to dethrone Medvedev.
Allez!
Missiles From Monfils
The dynamic of the match that sticks out more than a bad Kyrgios haircut line design? Both guys were exceptionally close from the back of the court.
Medvedev’s baseline points won: 45/97 = 46.4%
Monfils’ baseline points won: 51/101 = 50.5%
For it to be so close, it often took a ridiculously high level from Monfils to finish a point outright.
Medvedev looked to keep Monfils in his preferred backhand cross-court pattern of play but Monfils is one of the best in the business at flattening out his shots into the riskiest parts of the courts, going flat down the line or inside-out using his forehand frequently to get up in the point.
We all know Monfils can reach a level as high as this, we all know he’s capable of launching missile after missile (we also know what can happen to him on his off-days). On Monday, an on-day, Monfils only just broke even from the back of the court against the #1 player in the world by doing just that, going on an all-out offensive (his average forehand speed was 78mph to Medvedev’s 72mph).
This wasn’t the surprising part of the match, however. As I say, we all know Monfils has an outstanding peak to his game and that tapping into it would be his only hope of staying alive against the king of the baseline.
The biggest surprises came before the rallies had even started.
Solving Medvedev’s Return Technique
Medvedev’s unique returning style essentially neutralises his opponent’s first-serve.
Camped as much as seven metres behind the baseline, Medvedev takes the return on when it has slowed down, giving him time to react to the serve and essentially giving him a groundstroke to leather rather than a return to block back into play.
It’s a technique that saw him top the leaderboard last year for first-serve return points won on hard-courts at 34%.
How do you out-serve an opponent that’s going to get a racket to all of your serves, especially on a court that slows down the ball?
Monfils’ First-Serve
Going into the tournament, Monfils was hitting his first-serve at 118mph on average in 2022.
In his previous round at Indian Wells versus Filip Krajinovic, he upped that average speed to 124mph.
Against Medvedev, Monfils’ average first-serve speed was a lowly 113mph. This doesn’t even include the couple of underarm serves he threw in PLUS Monfils served down the tee more often than he did out wide, down the tee being the serve that is easiest to hit flat.
Why was Monfils hitting serves 9mph slower than in his previous round against Krajinovic?
There’s a reason Medvedev is 71-19 against players 6’4” or taller in height. Big massive serves alone have little effect on the guy, the server often finding themselves having to hit one or two more shots to win the point.
So Monfils mixed it up. I can’t believe I’d have to whip out standard deviation in an article but it’s so relevant here - the standard deviation around the average service speed of 113mph was 11.5mph i.e. Monfils frequently hit his first-serves around both the 100mph mark and the 130mph mark.
The effects of Monfils’ varied first-serve speed were twofold.
Keep Medvedev guessing. Most players try to blast their way through Medvedev - yes, this will earn the server the odd unreturned serve but, without dragging Medvedev off the court every once in a while or bringing him in using an underarm serve, he’ll get more of those serves back than a normal opponent and the server will naturally start to miss a few. So not only was Monfils getting some cheap points off of fast and slow serves that he wouldn’t have otherwise (31% of first-serves unreturned), he was also…
Staying consistent with slower serves. Less risk on the first-serve means more first-serves made which means less opportunities for Medvedev to attack the second-serve. Monfils made 77% of his first-serves, 18% higher than his average in 2022 - he was playing quite drastically outside of his usual service delivery.
Monfils’ Second-Serve
Monfils didn’t change much up in terms of his second-serve speed, his average speed of 100mph close to his season average of 99mph and only 3mph slower than it was against Krajinovic.
The Frenchman was pretty aggressive with his placement however, his aim very clear on both first and second serves - Medvedev wasn’t to get any attackable returns.
This led to a pretty high double fault rate (just over 1 in 4 second-serves missed) and was a catalyst to Medvedev sealing the first set, Monfils’ final service game including two double faults in a love break.
The tactics eventually came good however.
Medvedev was only able to win one solitary point forcing an error with his return and hit a fat zero return winners.
Monfils won the majority of his second-serve points in play (13/20 = 65%).
Monfils’ serve was only broken twice throughout the entirety of the match.
Medvedev at Indian Wells
This makes Medvedev’s record at Indian Wells 6 wins to 5 losses.
Dire numbers for the world #1.
Monfils holding serve fairly easily might not have been an issue if Medvedev were able to take care of matters on his own serve. However, we saw how the conditions at Indian Wells aren’t a match made in heaven for Medvedev’s serving strengths and weaknesses.
Less First-Serves In
The freakin’ air must be doing Medvedev’s head in every time he plays in California.
The combination of light balls, thin air and blustery wind seemed to wreak absolute havoc with his serve against Grigor last October. Up a set and a double break, Medvedev made 2/17 first-serves to drop serve four consecutive times.
Sure enough, Medvedev’s first-serve in percentage at Indian Wells is 4% below his average (60.3% to 56.4%) and against Monfils this dipped to 50%.
Weak Serve + 1
The slow courts also make Medvedev’s serve a little less effect, more of them being put back into play than he is used to (35% unreturned first-serves).
This is where Medvedev can be a little untidy. Stemming from a slightly weaker offensive forehand than most, Medvedev’s serve + 1 could do with a lot of improvement especially when you look at fellow top-tenners like Djokovic, Berrettini and Auger-Aliassime.
In the final two sets alone, Medvedev won as many service points with an unreturned serve as he lost service points on the following shot (13-13) i.e. Monfils hit a decent return or (more often that not) Medvedev missed his + 1 shot.
2-1 and 0-17
With Medvedev’s serve weakened and Monfils frequently finding ways to keep the Russian on his toes on his own serve, Medvedev still could have won this match on baseline prowess alone. Fortunately Monfils was also finding missiles from the back and thus, the perfect storm was created for Gael to clutch out the win.
It’s interesting to see Monfils now improve his record to 2-1 against Medvedev whilst his record against Novak remains at 0-17.
His first-serve percentage was also incredibly high in his win over Medvedev in Rotterdam in 2019 - Medvedev doesn’t take advantage of slower first-serves in the same way that Djokovic does, the Serb often able to graft an advantage for himself with quickly-taken returns down the middle of the court.
Whilst Medvedev gives himself much more time to take on the return, he also gives his opponent some time to regroup - he can neutralise more rallies off of bigger serves but against slower serves around the 100-115mph mark, the point can also often stay neutral where he could have gotten the slight edge.
All credit to Monfils as despite all of the above, it’s never easy to beat Medvedev on a hard-court.
Allez Gael… Good luck against Carlos!
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