Daniil Medvedev has strong opinions about the balls used at two Grand Slam tournaments.
Medvedev is often one of the more vocal players on the ATP Tour, and has even voiced his frustrations about the courts at the Vienna Open this week.
Tennis balls have caused a lot of controversy in recent years among players, particularly as they have been linked to the growing number of wrist and elbow injuries.
Medvedev recently won the Almaty Open, and in an interview with Russian outlet Bolshe he was told that he had won 81.4% of his service games with Wilson balls, and 87.1% without Wilson balls this year. When giving his verdict on what this could mean, Medvedev called out one Grand Slam tournament that uses Wilson balls.
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Daniil Medvedev claims Roland Garros use the worst balls
Medvedev explained that there are different types of Wilson balls, explaining that the balls that Roland Garros use are different to those that the US Open use. While Medvedev does not like everything about the US Open Wilson balls, he has been particularly critical of the ones that are used by Roland Garros, which he called ‘terrible’.
“Wilson balls are different. The Wilson US Open ball is completely different from the Wilson Roland Garros ball and I think there aren’t any other Wilsons, if I’m not mistaken. Maybe I’m wrong,” said Medvedev.
“Wilson Roland Garros, in my opinion, is probably the worst ball, worse than the Head ball in Rotterdam. That’s just my opinion, of course. I played a quarter-final with them, so it’s not like I’ve never won a single match with them. I reached the Roland Garros quarter-final with them, but for me they’re just terrible. Before that they were Babolat. I always lost with them in the first round, I think I didn’t win a match, but in my opinion they were much better balls. You can play better tennis with them.
“Wilson US Open is a different, longer story. In general, I liked them more than not. Whether they’ve changed over the years, I don’t know. We talked about it this year with Andrey Rublev. We were in China, practicing before Hangzhou, where we both reached the final and it just felt better than how it felt in America for those six weeks. We were just playing well.
“I said to him, ‘Listen, we used to play fine, so it’s probably something that changed in us, not the balls.’ He said, ‘Listen, I don’t know, it seems to me that the balls have changed.’ I was like okay I hope that’s the case, because it means it wasn’t just me who played badly in America, the balls also contributed to that.
“You showed the serving stats, but in America I couldn’t hit a backhand in the court, it just flew straight into the net no matter what I did and when I can’t hit a backhand, I can’t win tournaments. It’s not going to happen. When the ball flies into the net on the backhand, I get lost. I start thinking about playing pickleball, curling, and so on.”
While there are a number of factors as to why this could be including the surface, Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam tournament where Medvedev has not surpassed the quarter-finals in his career. Roland Garros is also the only Grand Slam tournament where Medvedev did not win a match this year.
| Grand Slam | Daniil Medvedev’s best result | Daniil Medvedev’s result in 2026 |
| Australian Open | Final (2021, 2022 & 2024) | Fourth Round |
| Roland Garros | Quarter-final (2021) | First Round |
| Wimbledon | Semi-final (2023 & 2024) | Third Round |
| US Open | Won the title (2021) | Fourth Round |
What Daniil Medvedev said when Roland Garros changed balls is now interesting
As Medvedev mentioned, Roland Garros changed their balls in 2020 from Babolat to Wilson, and his recent comments differ significantly from what he said at the time.
Roland Garros changing to Wilson balls caused a lot of controversy, with even record champion Rafael Nadal criticising the move, but Medvedev was actually one of the players who appeared to be more positive about the switch.
“Maybe it can help me that it’s a bit colder, so the balls don’t fly as much, don’t go as spinny,” Medvedev said at the time. “So maybe I can play some flat tennis in practices. I think it can be an opportunity for me actually, an advantage.
“I like the balls because, yeah, tennis is a funny and interesting sport…It’s normal that when one player doesn’t like something, second one maybe is going to like it. So far I like it. I think it suits me not bad.”
Medvedev’s opinions have changed vastly about these Wilson balls in the six years since then, but he will not have to use them at his final two tournaments of the year at the Paris Masters and the ATP Finals, which both use Dunlop balls instead.
