Gilles Cervara has said the decision to end his eight‑year working relationship with Daniil Medvedev was taken because continuing in the same circumstances posed a risk to both parties.

The split was announced on social media days after Medvedev was upset by Benjamin Bonzi in a five‑set first‑round match at the US Open. The duo had worked together since the summer of 2017, a period that produced a world No 1 ranking, a Grand Slam title, six Masters 1000 trophies and a Nitto ATP Finals crown.

“Results are the gauge of professional success, and even the measure of the player‑coach relationship in tennis,” began Cevara, in an exclusive interview with Tennis Majors.

“They hadn’t been satisfactory for some time. The question is why, and I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.

“After his first‑round loss at Wimbledon this year (to Benjamin Bonzi), I became certain that if results didn’t rebound during the summer, something needed to change.

“That ‘something’ was the energy around Daniil. So we needed to change the people involved.

“The ‘people’ concretely meant either me, or the fitness trainer Éric Hernandez, or both (Éric Hernandez also announced that the Medvedev project was ending for him). I kept thinking about it.

“I talked to Daniil after the US Open. He himself raised the idea: ‘After eight years, maybe it’s time for something different.’

“I said to him: ’Listen, that’s exactly what needs to happen in my opinion, because I don’t think I can continue to make you perform in the energy state we’re in right now. You need something new, something different, to transform.’”

Cervara traced the decline in results partly to the aftermath of the 2024 Australian Open final defeat to Jannik Sinner, when Medvedev surrendered from a two‑set lead. Since the 2023 Rome Masters the player has not won a title and has spent time outside the world’s top 10, currently listed at No 13 and due to drop to 17. This season he has recorded one Grand Slam match win, at the Australian Open.

“I think I thought of it before him,” he added. “I talked about it with his agent in Cincinnati. I was ready. In a frank assessment of the situation, I didn’t want to put Daniil in a corner—or myself.

“If I had asked him, ‘Do you think you can carry on like this?’ and he’d said ‘yes,’ that would have been a risk—a huge risk.

“We would only have had three months to validate that choice. You can keep working well while waiting for better results, of course.

“But starting a new season like that puts a sword of Damocles over your head—you have zero room for error.”

Cervara also reflected on team changes earlier in 2024, when former world No 6 Gilles Simon joined as an additional coach in February while Cervara planned to travel less. He described the situation as more complex than the results alone and said attempts to rebuild after Australia had not restored the previous structure. Medvedev is scheduled to return to the tour at the ATP 250 event in Hangzhou.

Taylor Fritz called his US Open quarter-final defeat to Novak Djokovic “tough” after he converted just two of his 13 break points in a 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 loss. The American produced a competitive display across four sets but could not convert enough opportunities to change the outcome.

Fritz finally broke Djokovic as the Serb sought to serve out the second set, but a double fault ended the game and the match, handing Djokovic an 11th consecutive victory over Fritz. Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam champion, advanced to the semi-finals and will next face world No 2 Carlos Alcaraz. The Serb had taken multiple medical timeouts earlier in the tournament for treatment on his feet, back, and shoulder but did not require one on Tuesday.

Reflecting on the match, Fritz was candid about the chances he left behind: “To be honest, the fact I was 0-10 almost sounds better for me than it really was because that is not counting how many times I had 15-30 or 0-30, 30-30,” admitted the American, during the post-match press conference.

“I had so many more chances that you are not going to see on the stat line because I was in points at 0-30, 15-30, 30-30 and I was just playing these points really poorly.

“When it comes down to the break points themselves, I would say that out of the 10, I think I converted on the 11th.

“I would say the first 10 I would say that five or six of them he played pretty well and it’s tough for me to do too much.

“And then four of them I just played a bad point or was too conservative or just pulled the trigger on the wrong time. It was just bad decision making, because I was not playing as well as I would have wanted to.

“So it’s a little bit tough in those pressure situations to know what I want to do, if it’s not really working for me.”

Fritz also noted that Djokovic committed more errors than usual and that the fourth set produced the best baseline tennis of the match. “His level was much higher in the fourth set, and mine was too,” he said.

The American, who reached his maiden Grand Slam final at the 2024 US Open, now drops back to world No 5. “I just need to play better,” concluded Fritz. “That’s the thing that is frustrating. I don’t need to play that much better to make it happen, because I had all the chances that I had playing how I was playing and I just needed to serve a bit better.

“I was serving pretty poorly in the first two sets.

“But at the end of the day, that is one of the things that makes the great players great, they win the big points and that is something that I touched on before the match.

“I am going to need to go out and take those points from him. He is not going to hand them over to me, and that’s exactly what happened.

“A lot of my weapons and aggressive shots were just not there or letting me down, so I felt like it was tough for me to go out and take those points.”

Novak Djokovic said he was not at peak freshness after his fourth-round victory over Taylor Fritz at the US Open, but he made clear he will not concede when he meets Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-final. The 24-time Grand Slam champion has battled a string of niggles at the hard-court major, from blisters to a back issue and shoulder trouble, yet progressed to the last four by extending his perfect record against Fritz to 11-0.

Djokovic won 6-3, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, dropping a set to the American and admitting he would have preferred to finish in three. Aged 38, he accepted Fritz was the better player through portions of the second and third sets and was relieved to come through.

“It was an incredibly close match. It was really anybody’s match. I thought I was lucky to really save crucial breakpoints in the second set,” the four-time US Open champion said. “For most of the second and third set he was the better player. In these kinds of matches, few points decide the winner. It was fortunately coming on my side, particularly at the end of the fourth set.”

Djokovic will return on Friday to face Alcaraz in their ninth meeting. The veteran leads their head-to-head 5-3, with his two most recent wins coming at this year’s Australian Open and in the gold medal match at the 2024 Paris Olympics last August.

He welcomed the break in the schedule ahead of the semi-final and outlined his recovery plan. “Good thing about the schedule is now that I have two days without a match, so that helps a lot,” he said. “So I don’t feel very fresh at the moment. But hopefully in two days will be different.

The seventh seed added: “It’s not going to get easier, I tell you that. But look, as I said, I’m going to try to take one day at a time, really take care of my body, try to relax and recover.

“The next couple of days is really key for me to really get my body in shape and ready to battle five sets if it’s needed. So I just would really love that, would love to be fit enough to play and to play, you know, potentially five sets with Carlos. And I know that my best tennis is going to be required, but I rise to the occasion.

“Normally, I like to play the big matches on a big stage. It’s just that I’m not really sure how the body is going to feel in the next few days. But, you know, I’m going to do my very best with my team to be fit for that. There’s going to be a lot of running involved, that’s for sure. I mean, there’s not going to be short points.”

With Carlos Alcaraz and defending champion Jannik Sinner seen as the pre-tournament favourites, Djokovic made his intentions clear about upsetting expectations. “We don’t need to spend words about two of them. You know, we know that they’re two best players in the world,” he said. “Everybody’s probably expecting and anticipating the finals between two of them. I’m going to try to, you know, mess up the plans of most of the people and let’s see, you know, Sinner still has to win a couple of matches to get to the finals, but they are playing definitely the best tennis of any player here.

“They’ve been the dominant force since the beginning of the tournament, but, you know, I definitely am not going with the white flag on the court. I don’t think anybody does, really, when they play them, but particularly not me.

“I put myself in another semi-final of a Grand Slam this year. I’ve been very consistent, mostly consistent on the Slams this season, and that’s what I said at the beginning of the year, where I would like to perform my best tennis and make the best results.”