Daniil Medvedev Critiques Roland Garros Tennis Balls
Daniil Medvedev has never been shy about saying what he thinks. Courts, schedules, crowds – nothing is off limits. Now, he’s taken aim at something smaller but increasingly central to the modern game: the tennis balls.
Fresh from winning the Almaty Open, the world No. 4 sat down with Russian outlet Bolshe and was presented with a curious statistic. This season, he has won 81.4% of his service games when using Wilson balls, and 87.1% when using other brands. Asked what he made of that split, Medvedev didn’t duck the question. He went straight for one of the sport’s biggest stages.
“Probably the worst ball”
Roland Garros, he said, uses the worst ball he plays with.
“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,” Medvedev said.
Then came the punchline.
“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.”
He didn’t stop there. Before the switch in Paris, the French Open used Babolat balls. Medvedev’s record with them was poor – he believes he never won a match at Roland Garros with Babolat – yet he still preferred how they played.
“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.”
It’s a striking contradiction: worse results, better feeling. But it fits a wider pattern on tour. Players have increasingly linked ball changes to a spike in wrist and elbow injuries, complaining that constant shifts in weight, felt and bounce are punishing joints already under stress from a relentless calendar.
Split verdict on Wilson
Medvedev’s criticism is not a blanket attack on Wilson. He draws a clear line between the ball used in Paris and the one that flies through the night sessions in New York.
“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,” he said.
The Russian described a recent conversation with close friend Andrey Rublev during a swing in China, where both reached the final in Hangzhou. The same Wilson US Open balls felt better there than they had during the American hard-court season.
“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.”
Then came a candid admission about how badly things went for him in the US this year.
“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.”
That line – half joke, half confession – captures the frustration many players feel. When confidence drains away, they start to question everything: technique, tactics, even the sport itself.
A Grand Slam outlier
There is a hard edge to all of this for Medvedev. Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam where he has never gone beyond the quarter-finals. It is also the only major where he failed to win a single match this year.
Surface, conditions, draw – all play a part. But in his mind, the ball is firmly on the charge sheet.
His comments also throw an interesting light on the controversy that erupted in 2020, when Roland Garros switched from Babolat to Wilson. The move drew criticism from across the locker room. Even Rafael Nadal, the record champion in Paris, voiced his displeasure.
Medvedev, at the time, sounded like an outlier. He spoke positively about the change and about the way the cooler autumn conditions and new balls might actually help him.
“Maybe it can help me that it's a bit colder, so the balls don't fly as much, don't go as spinny,” he said back then. “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.”
Four years on, the tone has flipped. The same ball he once saw as an opportunity is now “terrible”. The Slam he once hoped the change would unlock remains the one major where the door refuses to fully open.
As the debate over equipment and injuries grows louder, Medvedev’s blunt verdict on Roland Garros will only fuel it. If one of the sport’s most accomplished hard-court players believes the ball is holding him back on clay, how long before the conversation turns from complaints to concrete demands for change?
