Daniil Medvedev reacts to the crowd at the 2022 Australian Open
Medvedev was frustrated by the crowd's reaction to him at last month's Australian Open, saying after losing to Rafael Nadal in the final that "the kid had stopped dreaming"

The world number one says the only way to make him angry is to knock on his hotel door at 6am seven days in a row.

It does not always look that way when he is playing.

He can be a cantankerous villain in the heat of competition.

The Russian can be charismatic and entertaining. He has the same crowd eating out of his hand by the end of the match.

The last player other than Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray to be the top of the men's rankings was Andy Roddick 18 years ago.

The US Open champion has excelled with his serve, defence and flat hitting. He runs like a marathon runner and also reads the game very well.

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When he was a kid, Medvedev liked to watch curling and snooker. He likes chess and video games.

He suggests that he can eat his way through the hotel's supply of tiramisu at the end of the week if he abstains from tournaments.

In his late teens, Medvedev and his parents moved to the south of France to train. He speaks both English and French, and has a French team headed by the coach who has been with him for a year.

When they started working together, Medvedev was outside the top 50. They will sometimes argue on the practice court, but they seem to be a perfect fit, since they left the players box when the target of the Russian's venom was last year's Australian Open.

According to the US Tennis Association, the year before their partnership began, Medvedev was thrown out of a Challenger match in the US city of Savannah for questioning the impartiality of the umpire. He later apologized.

Two days after his first Grand Slam win by beating Stan Wawrinka in the first round of Wimbledon, Medvedev was fined heavily for emptying his wallet at the feet of the umpire's chair. It was clear that Mariana Alves had shown bias towards Ruben Bemelmans.

'I want to remember this moment' - Medvedev tells BBC Radio 5 Live about US Open win

The man who said he would like to see a film about his life made by the man who said he would like to see a film about his life started to show what he could do.

He won his first Masters Series event in Cincinnati, hitting first serves for second serves, and then reached the US Open final, where he took Nadal into a fifth set having been two sets and a break down. He won three titles on three different continents in the late summer and early autumn of that year.

The New York crowd loved him even though he was considered public enemy number one earlier in the fortnight.

In the third round, he snatched a towel from the ball person's hands, threw his racquet towards the umpire, and then showed the crowd his middle finger as they told him what they thought of his behavior.

One of the great interviews after a match.

When you go to sleep at night, I won because of you. I think the energy you are giving me will be enough for my next five matches. The more you do this, the more I will win.

He said he was a calm person in life.

I don't know why the demons go out when I play tennis. I had a lot of problems with my attitude when I was a junior. I had a game penalty and it was easy.

He decided to eliminate victory celebrations because of the hostile New York crowd. He walked to the net after becoming the first man in the history of the ATP Finals to beat all of the top three.

You might think that Medvedev makes the odd exception.

He mimicked the goal celebration of German footballer Mario Gomez when Russia won the ATP Cup at the start of 2021, and then enacted the "dead fish" celebration from a well known football video game when he won his first match.

Daniil Medvedev celebrates winning the 2020 US Open
Medvedev described his US Open celebration as "L2+left", which is the code for the 'dead fish' goal celebration in the Fifa video game

Four weeks after one of the most disappointing and upsetting experiences of his professional career, Medvedev has become the world number one.

He had a two-set lead against Nadal in the Australian Open final, but lost in five hours and 24 minutes and was booed by the crowd.

The kid stopped dreaming at night, he said.

He said that he was playing for himself, his family, people that trust him, and all the Russians.

Staying at the top is never easy. Even though he has more ranking points to defend, he is able to play where he chooses.

His next challenge is to develop more power on the clay and grass, and he is moving in the right direction having reached the quarter-finals at the French Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon last year.

It's hard to take your eyes off the man.

Whether he is hitting an underarm serve when match point down, or wiping an opponent off the court, he has become one of the sport's great entertainers as well as the world number one.