Ex-Federer coach explains why he xredits Medvedev despite 6-0, 6-0 defeat

Daniil Medvedev had a tough day on the court, falling to Matteo Berrettini in straight sets.

But it was more than just a routine loss.

Berrettini didn’t drop a single game, taking the match 6-0, 6-0 – a scoreline rarely seen at this level, especially against a player ranked as high as the world number 10.

Medvedev has always struggled on clay, but this was unlike any defeat he’s suffered before. Even he seemed at a loss for words after the match.

Speaking on Tennis Channel, Paul Annacone and CoCo Vandeweghe tried to make sense of what had happened.

Monte Carlo Breakdown: Why Medvedev struggled so much against Berrettini

The analysis started by discussing why the Russian has always had a hard time on this surface, giving some important context to what was a really surprising result.

Annacone, who previously worked with big names like Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, said: “The three winners and 28 unforced errors. It’s just one of those things.

“Daniil Medvedev has always had a horrible relationship with the clay.

“And I think so much of it is about the fact that he has no rotation on his ground strokes, because he can slide, he can move on the clay, plays deep in the court, the ball just kind of sits up. He generally waits for the game to come to him. On clay, it actually never gets to him.

“When he plays a match like this, he can go south quickly. But I give him credit; he really mostly tried. You could see the frustration, I thought; a player at this level – it’s so rare to see a match drop like that.”

Vandeweghe then offered her perspective too, suggesting there may still be reasons for optimism: “Where he needs to make some inroads is when it comes to him getting to a faster clay court.

“He’s going to have Madrid coming up; he’s going to have Rome if it’s a warm condition day and Roland Garros can play a lot quicker than these courts will play throughout the rest of the play court season.”

She also raised an interesting point regarding scheduling:

“Honestly, I don’t find it to be such a bad thing if you skipped one of those – whether it would be Rome – but probably if he was going to skip anything just so he could find a little bit of happiness.”

Matteo Berrettini’s rare clay feat puts him in exclusive company

Rafael Nadal may have stepped away from tennis, but his reputation on clay remains as strong as ever.

Even now, when the surface comes up, it’s his name that still carries the most weight.

Nadal spent nearly two decades rewriting what dominance looked like on clay. It was a stretch where he didn’t just win tournaments—he often seemed unbeatable.

During his prime, beating him on this surface felt almost impossible. Even so, there are a few records he never managed to tick off.

Nadal never recorded a 6-0, 6-0 victory in an ATP-level match on clay—a milestone Berrettini achieved against Medvedev. It’s one of those odd stats that sticks out given Nadal’s otherwise overwhelming resume.

Berrettini now joins David Goffin and Alex de Minaur as the only players to achieve this specific feat at tour level. No one expected Medvedev to be added to that list of victims before Thursday afternoon.

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