THE MODERATOR: Good to have you in Brisbane. You have been practicing a bit, and you have been here for a few days. How are you feeling, settling in?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Feeling great. It's a strong field. It's great to start the year with a strong tournament.
Looking forward, because first tournament of the year, nobody never knows how you cope up with the pressure, everything. So I'm happy to start a new year, and let's see how I can go.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. You had sort of an up-and-down season last year, but finished with sort of some strong results with that title in Almaty. How important was it to get that win?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Yeah, it was more that just till the end of the year, closer to the end of the year, I was playing good tennis, making good results. Still think I could play a bit better in couple of matches, but it was getting better and better.
It was pretty important even for the preseason, you know, to start with the same team, to continue working kind of the same way that we did in the end of the season. So as I said, looking forward to this one.
Beginning of the season is never kind of easy, because you usually have one tournament and then it's a slam straightaway. So it's going to be interesting for everyone.
Q. Also, a relatively new coaching setup for you. What have Thomas and Rohan brought to your game?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: Tough to say, you know, like this, but I always said that when I was looking for a new team, I was looking for someone who would be, let's put it this way, okay with the way I played, and just for sure, of course, some details here and there.
Volley improve quite a lot. Trying to work on the serve because it was a bit too much up and down last year. There were some matches where it was great and some where it could be better. So maybe say volley and serve, and of course we do still work on the forehand and backhand, but if we need to point out something, maybe volley and serve.
Q. Welcome to Australia again. Sinner and Alcaraz, they have obviously separated themselves at the top of the men's game. Do you think you can chase them down? What is the tour making of their dominance at the moment?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I think they are stronger than everyone, and even I saw some stats, I think it was when Sinner lost in quarters of Roland Garros, I would not remember the year, he was super young, he was the youngest in the quarterfinal. They showed, and his baseline strokes' power was stronger than everyone, and Rafa was there at the time.
So, hey, when someone hits stronger than you, puts everything in the court, runs definitely not slower than you, serves not worse than you, it's tough to beat him. But you can always try. But in terms of consistency that they both showed last year, it's probably almost impossible for anyone to get to this No. 2 spot. But then, you know, the slams is the most important, and they were in all the finals -- no. Three out of four finals last year. But you can always beat them in one match.
Probably if you play, like, 10 matches, probably not going to get a lot of wins, but you can always beat them in one match, and that's the goal whenever you play them.
Q. Have you had any response from other players about your comments about the Australian Open scheduling of the night matches?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: What did I say?
Q. Being played at, you'd rather them start at 6:00 rather than 7:00. Have any other players seen those and comment to you and agree...
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: No, between players, at least that's my feeling, we don't really talk too much about what other players said in the press. But I do think that if you ask other players, I don't think anyone would be, like, No, let's start at 8:00. Probably everyone would be happy to start at 6:00.
I know that then it can be a problem for the day matches, but I'm pretty sure that it's better to put it at 6:00, and if we need to start at 7:00 because of the day match, okay, but then there is a chance you can still start at 6:00 which would be better to not finish at 3:00 in the morning. But I always said that even by saying this I prefer to play at night. So whenever. 7:00, 6:00, second, I'm happy to play at night.
Q. You have obviously had some great results here in Australia. What is it about Australia that brings out good tennis?
DANIIL MEDVEDEV: I think the courts. They are usually pretty fast. The balls are usually pretty fast. Depends. Some years were slow, but some years -- but the courts are pretty fast. It's outdoor hard courts. I like playing on hard courts.
And it's been two last years? No, one year I played good. But two out of the last three years I could have played better. So we'll try to do it this year. If we take one out of two, then this is a good year (smiling).
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports