What Daniil Medvedev needs to do at Indian Wells to keep No. 1

Daniil Medvedev pulled off something remarkable on February 28th, 2022, becoming the first man other than Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray to be No. 1 on the ATP rankings since Andy Roddick on February 1st, 2004.

But now, in his first tournament as No. 1, his top ranking is already under threat: if Medvedev reaches the quarterfinals in Indian Wells he’ll keep No. 1, but otherwise, Djokovic—who's not playing at Indian Wells this year—will take it back.

Medvedev leads Djokovic by 150 points right now, 8,615 to 8,465, but he’s dropping 250 points on March 21st, after Indian Wells, from winning the ATP 250 in Marseille a year ago.

He would earn 180 points by reaching the quarterfinals of Indian Wells, which would make up the difference—a fourth round is worth 90 points, which would not.

And he would be stretching his lead over Djokovic at No. 1 with a semifinal (360 points), a final (600 points) or the title (1,000 points) over the next 10 days.

Medvedev has never reached the quarterfinals of Indian Wells, but there’s a bit of an asterisk there—he wasn’t even in the Top 10 yet the first three times he played the event in 2017, 2018 and 2019, then it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

In the Russian’s only appearance at Indian Wells since he became a Top 10 player, he reached the fourth round in 2021, where he fell to Grigor Dimitrov, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. He had been on a 10-match winning streak at that point, which included his run to the US Open title, and he very nearly won that match too, having led 6-4, 4-1.

Medvedev, who’s won more hard-court matches (175) and titles (12) than anyone on the tour since 2018, was asked in his pre-tournament press conference at Indian Wells how he feels about becoming No. 1—and he said he had mixed feelings.

“I’m really happy to achieve it. I mean, I’ve played a lot of great tournaments for this, gained a lot of points,” he said. “But with everything happening it comes with mixed feelings. With everything—like Novak, we have to say, he was not able to play for some time, played only one tournament this year, and he was the best player in the world for the last one, two years for sure.

“So, I’m still happy I managed to do it. There are not so many players who did this in their careers. And that’s what I dreamed of when I was young.”

The two weeks of Indian Wells will be Medvedev’s second and third career weeks at No. 1, which already puts him at 25th on the list of most career weeks at No. 1 in ATP rankings history, passing Patrick Rafter (one week) and Carlos Moya (two weeks).

After a first-round bye, Medvedev will open against No. 158-ranked Czech qualifier Tomas Machac in the second round on Saturday. Should he win that, he could play No. 26 seed Gael Monfils in the third round, and potentially No. 15 seed Roberto Bautista Agut or No. 19 seed Carlos Alcaraz in the fourth round.

If he gets through all that, he’ll be guaranteed a fourth and fifth week at No. 1—if not, Djokovic will be guaranteed a 362nd and 363rd week on top.