Stat of the Day: Daniil Medvedev becomes first player to 40 wins this year with victory in Halle

Daniil Medvedev has become the first man to record 40 tour-level wins this year after defeating American Marcos Giron, 6-4, 6-3, in his opening match at the ATP 500 grass-court event in Halle on Monday.

MOST WINS THIS YEAR (men, tour-level):
40: Daniil Medvedev [40-7]
35: Carlos Alcaraz [35-4]
32: Stefanos Tsitsipas [32-10]
32: Taylor Fritz [32-13]
30: Jannik Sinner [30-9]
30: Holger Rune [30-11]
30: Cameron Norrie [30-11]
27: Novak Djokovic [27-4]
27: Frances Tiafoe [27-9]
27: Andrey Rublev [27-12]

And he's not just the first man to 40 wins this year, he’s the first player, male or female—Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek currently leads the women’s tour with 35 wins on the season.

Medvedev spoke to Tennis.com about his latest milestone.

“Well, actually, 40 is a lot because in a way, let’s say, if you win five matches per tournament, it’s kind of like winning eight titles. That’s not the case, but still a lot of wins. I don’t know what’s the maximum I have in my career, but yeah, probably you can try to beat it this year.

"I had an amazing start. Unfortunately, Grand Slams didn’t go as expected, but that’s tennis, you know. Two players play and only one can win, and then there is Novak who wins almost all of them. I don’t know how he does it. But yeah, really happy about my performance this year and looking forward to more tournaments.”

For the record, his highest number of wins in a year was 63 in 2021.

After opening-round losses at his last two events at Roland Garros and ’s-Hertogenbosch, Medvedev was looking to get back on the winning track in Halle, and that’s exactly what he did against Giron.

The first set was decided by just one break, with Medvedev breaking for 3-2 and then riding it to a one-set lead. There were some dicey moments midway through the second set as Medvedev faced a break point serving at 2-3, ad-out, but from there he came alive, winning the last four games in a row—and 15 of the last 17 points of the match—to close it out after just an hour and 11 minutes on court.

“It was definitely not the best match of my life—I was still lacking the rhythm a little bit,” Medvedev said. “But he played very well and I’m very happy to win, because sometimes grass is like this, you need to break one time in a set and serve well and the match is yours, and that’s what I managed to do, or take it on a tie-break.

“I think I only had three games where I had chances on his serve and I managed to take two of them, and I saved all of the tough moments I had on my serve, so yeah, that’s what grass tennis is.”

Awaiting the No. 1-seeded Medvedev in the second round of the ATP 500 event will be Serbia’s Laslo Djere, a 7-6 (3), 6-3 winner over German wild card Oscar Otte in the first match of the day.