Every player has his own style. With Novak Djokovic it is the laser-guided accuracy and the fierce intensity; with Roger Federer it is the grace and elegance, Nijinsky with a tennis racket. And with Daniil Medvedev, it is thinking. An awful lot of thinking. Sometimes there is the odd meltdown but basically it is all about the thinking. 

The world No.2 plays tennis like a grand master plays chess. “Ah-ha! Your backhand slice. I counter with my two-hander and then I will take you with my forehand. I will have your service game in three more moves.” You can almost see the mental cogs whirring and spinning as he plays. 

Given that approach, it seems strange that the Russian simply loves to play on grass. His results in SW19 have not been nearly as impressive as they have been on the hard courts of the US or Australian Opens, but he loves the green stuff. 

“To be honest, [I love] almost everything,” he said. “Just the bad bounces sometimes can be tough. That's the only thing.” 

But even then, he was smiling. What is a bad bounce between friends at Wimbledon? 

“I like to feel being on grass,” he went on. “You can lay down, you can jump for the ball, you can sit on the grass. You don't need to sit on the chair. It's actually relaxing to be on the grass, especially when it's good weather, the sun is shining. 

“Of course, it suits my game very well. For my strokes, for my serve, even for my return, the grass suits me very well. What is not easy with the grass is you have to adapt a lot to it. That's what I managed to do. Hopefully that's what can help me.” 

He has been adapting well in the past couple of weeks. Fresh from reaching the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros, he headed to Halle only to lose to Jan-Lennard Struff in the first round. Then he went to Mallorca and, on Saturday, beat Sam Querrey to win the title. And now he faces Struff again in the opening round here.

“It's definitely a tough draw,” Medvedev said. “Jan is a tough opponent, especially on grass. He's a danger to top players. He can beat top players. He proved it many times. “What is positive is that in Halle I was far from my best level and I still had chances to close out the first set. Of course, second set he was better than me. So I'm really happy that I managed to come to Wimbledon with a lot of confidence behind my back. That's what can help me to try to beat him. Very tough opponent and very good player and very good person.” 

Since that day in Halle, Medvedev only dropped one more set on the grass on his way to his first title on the stuff. His confidence is running high. But, then again, he seems to gain confidence from every match he plays on grass, win or lose. 

His very first Grand Slam match win was here in 2017 – he beat Stan Wawrinka, then the world No.3, in four sets. He went on to lose to Ruben Bemelmans, the world No.124, in the next round, but even that gave him something to take away and use to his advantage later. 

“[Beating Stan] was super important because that was my biggest win of my career at the time,” he said. “Maybe it stayed like this for actually a year or even two years after that. Was my first Grand Slam win also. 

“For me experience plays a big key. Even the match after I actually lost to Ruben Bemelmans with a tantrum and everything. All of these small details, it's experience. Without these things, I wouldn't be able to go further in slams, to be in my finals and everything, to get the title. 

“All these matches in all every tournaments, including Wimbledon against Stan, that's what makes me tennis player I am right now. Yeah, just remembering the match, it was amazing. There was no COVID. It was full stadium. I think it was actually Monday, so that's when the No. 1 plays and opens the Centre Court. So was just unbelievable. Hopefully I can experience some more moments like this on the central court of Wimbledon.” 

He is even reasonably happy that he lost to Struff two weeks ago. Every move and counter move has been filed in the memory bank for use in Tuesday’s game plan as part of the Daniil Gambit. Or, possibly, Countergambit. 

“It actually helps before this first round,” he said, “because it can give me some small advices with experience of maybe what I should do different in any moments. And as I said, winning the title just before a Grand Slam is always a good thing.” 

The Medvedev Opening will be on Tuesday; we will see whether it will be checkmate in two weeks’ time.