Daniil Medvedev shares endearing anecdote about daughter Alisa showing off her acting skills at playtime

Daniil Medvedev has shared an endearing story about his eldest daughter, Alisa. Alisa was born in October 2022 and is Medvedev's first child with his wife, Daria Chernyshkova. The couple has a second daughter, Vika, who arrived in January this year.

Medvedev, the World No. 11, is in Rome competing in the Italian Open. He came through a potentially difficult first-round match against Englishman Cameron Norrie in good style yesterday, 6-4, 6-2, and plays Australian Alexei Popyrin in the second round tomorrow. Medvedev's young family travels with him on the tour.

After defeating Norrie, Medvedev shared an endearing story in his post-match interview, replayed by the Meddy Family X (formerly Twitter) account, in which he was playing a game with two-year-old Alisa that involved collecting markers. The Russian described his daughter as an "actress" when she adoringly complained that she was too tired to continue:

"Alisa is an actress. She took out all the markers and stopped playing with them. We started collecting them together, she collected 5, I collected 5 and she looks at me and says: I have no more strength, oh!"

Daniil Medvedev's wife, Daria Medvedev, is, in fact, a professional actress. Daria has appeared in several films and TV shows, including "Chitin" (2022) and "What the hell did I just watch" (2023).

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Daniil Medvedev is hoping to repeat his 2023 Italian Open success

Internazionali BNL D'Italia 2025 - Day Five - Source: Getty

Medvedev is in Europe for the clay court season, and at the same place, he won his last ATP title in 2023. He'll be trying to recover that sort of form before the French Open at the end of the month, where he reached the quarterfinals in 2021. Five of Medvedev's 20 ATP titles came in the nine months after Alisa was born, but the Russian hasn't won a tournament since then.

Regardless, Daniil Medvedev insists that fatherhood suits him. He was interviewed by tennis.com in 2022 and said Alisa copies his on-court moods, which prompts accusations from his wife, Daria.

“If something doesn’t go her way, then she throws a toy in anger or bites it. My wife is looking at me saying, ‘Okay, where does it come from?’ And that’s pretty funny because you start asking yourself if it’s just pure genetics and I don’t have an answer to this question."

Medvedev's best performance of 2025 happened at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. The 29-year-old beat Bu Yunchaokete, Alex Michelsen, Tommy Paul, and Arthur Fils to reach the semifinals, where he lost to eventual runner-up Holger Rune. He'll hope his previous success in Italy will be the catalyst for a satisfying conclusion to the clay-court season.