Daniil Medvedev eager to show off improving clay court form

While Medvedev arrives at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia as the third seed he is all too aware of his poor record at the event, where he is yet to win a match in three attempts.

In fact, the 2021 US Open winner's clay court record leaves much to be desired, with a 7-6 win-loss record at the French Open and a 47% win percentage overall across Medvedev's 47 matches.

But the hard court specialist - where his win rate is an impressive 75% - is working at improving his skill on the slow surface.

"Especially the sliding, I think the sliding was always a problem," quipped the 27-year-old on atptour.com.

"After Madrid, after I lost, a couple days I practised there, I tried to focus on the sliding, on the movement. I felt like I improved in these couple of days.

œ[I'm] looking forward to the tournament because [I've] never won a match [here]. So, that's the first goal.

"I feel great physically. Every day I'm trying to put [together a] strong session and try to work on small things with my coach. It has been working great, so I'm looking forward to try and play the same in the matches because it's never the same.

"These two days [practising], I was playing really good clay tennis. I was not missing many balls here these last two days. It was tough for my opponents. Again, you never know. I say all this, but maybe first match it's not the case. But it's good to have some good practice. I was really happy about it."

Medvedev will attempt to open his account in Rome against Frenchman Ugo Humbert or World No. 43 Emil Ruusuvuori on Friday.