"Medvedev has a little monster inside him that is not easy to handle"

Fernando Murciego | 26 Nov 2025 | 12.55

Gilles Simon explains in which tournament his relationship with Medvedev broke off. Source: Getty.

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Gilles Simon only worked for one season with Daniil Medvedev, enough to return home with an experience filled with moments that helped him grow as a coach. Today, he has finally decided to reveal what happened between the two of them.

The 2024 season where Daniil Medvedev finished the year in the top 5 globally, albeit far from his highest level of greatness. He competed in 19 tournaments, winning none, a consequence that ultimately led to grounding Gilles Simon who, after twelve months within the Russian's team, had to step off the boat leaving Gilles Cervara solely in charge. In an interview with Eurosport France, the former French player detailed some intimate moments from their time together that season, highlighting a very specific moment where he realized he could no longer contribute anything further.

"Daniil is extremely pleasant on the outside but when he is on the court, when he plays matches, he has an inner little monster to face that is not easy to handle," stated the Frenchman. "We have been players; we understand what is happening, we know which comments do no favors, but we understand. It's a shame it turned out that way, but I knew this before starting to work with him, and everything else was moments of happiness," added the man who experienced firsthand what it was like to work with the Russian.

"He is a player I care deeply about, I really adore him, I understood him perfectly in many situations. We had discussed tactical aspects several times, particularly the ones I had explained, how I saw the situations through my eyes when, for example, he had to face Novak Djokovic. I believe I was helping him a lot in that aspect, so I would have liked to continue trying," recalled Gilles about those aspects he tried to add to his repertoire. However, at the same time, he encountered an athlete who was practically fully formed.

"We are dealing with a player who had already achieved a lot, a 28-year-old player, a person with strong convictions, which is important to have, but from the outside, it becomes very challenging to modify them at certain points. If we also consider that there are two players like Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, two rivals who have outshone him several times, everything becomes a bit more complicated," Simon summed up, who hasn't worked with anyone else since.

Gilles Simon reveals why his relationship with Daniil Medvedev broke down

To understand when their professional relationship began to deteriorate between Gilles Simon and Daniil Medvedev - always accompanied by Gilles Cervara, who distanced himself from his player a few months ago - one must go back to September 2024.

Gilles Simon and Daniil Medvedev working together in 2024. Source: Getty

"We had a first disagreement during the US Open, where he reached the quarter-finals. I remember he was returning from a long distance in each match, which didn't match the tactical approach we had designed. I knew he would beat the players he defeated by returning from such a distance, players like Fabian Marozsan or Nuno Borges, but my pre-match analysis for the quarter-finals was that, if he continued to return like that, he wasn't prepared to face Jannik Sinner," pointed out the former top 10 player in his playing days.

"It's very difficult to implement certain changes for a player with such a defined pattern, someone accustomed to following certain paths when needed. It must necessarily be harder to work with a 28-year-old who's traveled a path already paved, than with a kid of 15 or 20 years. At the end of the season, we conversed, and he confessed to me that I had already helped him a lot but that he could no longer be pushed," he concluded.

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, “Medvedev tiene un pequeño monstruo en su interior que no es fácil de manejar”