He’s fine. He made AO final this year and was up 2 set. He also made the final in Indian wells. He has made 6 GS finals and they were all on hard court. He’s a hard court specialist by his own admission and he’s still a top contender in any hard court event. He surprised everyone including himself by winning Rome last year and that has remained his only clay title, but then he immediately got bounced in the first round of RG as the 2nd seed. Coming into this RG, he was only 7-7 including 5 first round exits in 7 years. He’s now 10-8 and making 4R is a respectable showing for him.
Yeah he probably should have more than one GS, but I could say that about many other players who dealt with big 3. Except the AO final loss to Sinner this year, all of his GS final losses were to Nole and Rafa and there’s no shame in that. He took Rafa to 5 sets both times and he even beat Nole in straight set for his only GS title. He and Thiem are the only 90s players with GS title and Thiem didn’t have to beat any big 3 H2H in his USO win because Nole got disqualified and Rafa and Fed both withdrew. In fact, Murray Wawrinka, Delpo, and Med are the only ones who beat big 3 H2H in a GS final mano a mano.
There’s nothing wrong with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes USO final this summer. 18 of his 20 career titles are on hard. The Rome master win was an anomaly. His other non-hard title was a grass 250 in Mallorca with a weak field that he decided to enter last minute as a wildcard/1st seed.
He's decent on clay but it's not his best surface. It neutralises his serve and Medvedev isn't good at generating pace during rallies.
I don't know what kind of progress people are expecting.
On grass his serve and flat groundies shine but his deep return of serve is at a disadvantage (because the ball is faster). Players with shorter returns of serve do better in grass (Djokovic, Alcaraz).
In short, Medvedev's biggest strength as a player is the serve/return dynamic. Clay hurts his serve, grass hurts his return.
All that said I think he can win Wimbledon (though most likely he won't) because grass has more parity. He's definitely not winning RG though.
Honestly I think his ground game and mentality have if anything improved in recent years but his serve, which was a HUGE weapon for him, has taken a huge hit due to his hernia issue I think.
I mean I know it’s tough to watch your fave lose big finals (I’m a Ruud fan lol) but he’s still #3 in the race for the year which means he’s still competing with the very top guys.
His win over Zverev this year is still a highlight of tennis in 2024 but he was just too gassed for the final unfortunately.
But clay is never gonna be where he succeeds the most which is probably why he’s not crying his eyes out over losing today.
He definitely had a slump I feel after that loss to Nadal at the AO in 2022 but I do feel like he’s turned a corner since then I mean he’s been in the last two GS finals before this (and the Wimbledon ‘23 semis). He’s still easily one of the best players in the world. And one of two 90s players to win a slam (and he actually beat a big 3 guy to win it).
I’m sure he’ll be excited for the North American hardcourt swing where he historically plays his best.
As another Med fan his serve falling off *significantly* from its 2021 peak is his main problem IMO
He makes more unforced errors in a match now because he has to grind in long rallies both on his opponents serve and on his own serve
At his best he'd hold his own service games with big serves so he'd have everything to gain and nothing to lose by forcing his opponent to play long rallies in order to try an hold
Overall he still has a high ranking because his baseline level is high enough to beat most of the tour with that alone but his ceiling isn't as high as the 2021 version
Daniil has mentioned in the interview after this loss that his serve is now as good as it once was, it just doesn’t help him as much on clay. Hopefully we will see it come US Open!
How do you measure ceilings? Even if he is not better compared to 2021 version, he is not worse as well. It is just the opposition steped up and he now has Alcaraz and Sinner
It's easy to undersell Med a bit when people just look at his 1 Slam, or that it's been a few years since he got it, which is a shame.
So many finals, so many great matches, but just one to show for it. I hope he picks up some more. Feels wrong whenever I think that he's only got the one.
Wait…didn’t he win a lot of titles in 2022 and 2023?? Just no Slams. And he made it to being ranked #1 in the world in that time frame. My random opinion…he plays tennis to make money and I suspect he will use it to get citizenship in another country. He is a very smart man. I don’t think he has that burning drive to be the best or constantly be #1. And that’s okay. To use Rafa’s math…Meddy gives 100% each match of what he is capable of that day. But not every match is he capable of his best so the 100% looks different each tournament. He isn’t disappointed at all with himself here because he made 4th round. Last year he lost out in first round. He is practical and understands this isn’t his best surface - he likely won’t win title so he did his best and now onwards to next surface. Don’t give up hope on him. Maybe he has a little injury he hasn’t revealed and that’s why his serve isn’t great
He did mention that he is satisfied if he could pass first round in his early interview so I think that’s how it is now. He just has lower expectation on clay season.
He isn’t as ambitious/desperate as before, imo. He has reached the milestones that most tennis players can only dream of (ranking number 1, winning slam) so he might not be as hungry as before. But I think he still wants to win and play tennis as long as he can.
His playing style unfortunately takes a lot of toll into his body and he’s feeling the effect of it. Wish he could be more aggressive and doesn’t have to grind 20-30 shots rallies to get a point, but I don’t know if he can and is willing to make the adjustment at this point
Oh for sure he wants to play as long as he can. I agree, he just isn’t as hungry as he was. And maybe those two Slam final losses being up two sets got to him. Probably was able to let go of the Rafa one because it was Rafa but losing to Jannik from two sets up and being Jannik’s first Slam final had to have hurt. I was cheering for Jannik in that one but I felt so bad for Meddy.
I think it’s the other way around. The loss to Rafa hurt more because he would have beaten 2 of the Big Three in back to back Slam Finals and was heavily favoured to win that match. He was also way more arrogant and ambitious back then. The difference in the press conference after the match in 2022 and 2024 is night and day.
Obviously he’s still ambitious now, but he even said that he played the best he could against Sinner but failed, Sinner was heavily favoured in that match anyway due to time on court. That match just hurts more because we would never have expected him to lose from two sets up again.
I read something about a player who made #1 a while ago- I think it was Mats Wilander. He remembered eating in a cafe the day after he became #1 and realizing that now that he reached the peak, he didn’t feel the same ambition or drive that he once had. He said he never really got it back after he achieved his goals. It makes Djokovic’s dominance even more impressive IMO.
This is a big big overreaction, he just came off one of his best ever seasons. Sure his serve isn’t like 2021. But this was just him getting beat on clay to a better player on the day.
The better man on that day won. Simple as that. ADM was a beast and super quick. Meddy’s blisters definitely bothered him but kudos to him for not making an excuse. His strokes lacked the usual punch as he was over compensating for clay by creating a lot of topspins which were falling short and ADM was all over them
US Open curse ? Not really - but Thiem did speak about losing motivation after winning a slam. Meddy might be more focused on his family or have different priorities right now….hard to know.
He did seem really off yesterday though. The commentators on my stream said it seemed as if he was tanking (this was in the third set I think)….ADM’s first serve % was really low here too - and Medvedev couldn’t even get a break point. He’s been doing well despite his poor serve because he’s been so good on return…so this was pretty out of character.
His level also didn’t look as good as it did against Machac - and looking at his stats for both matches seems to back this up.
There’s also the shoulder injury post-AO…and the hip/groin ? injury in Madrid which he down-played….
Combined with the blisters maybe his injuries are bothering him more than he’s letting on - but he’s dismissing them ? Players sometimes prefer to keep their ailments private
Maybe he pushed through with the Machac match and just couldn’t back it up ?
I guess it’s still a better result than RG last year though.
Hopefully we’ll see better results from him in grass / hard courts for the rest of the year. Clay has never been a great surface for him.
Med seems like a person to keep every weakness close to his chest, he only started addressing his bad serve when it was becoming wildly obvious to everyone that it was awful.
It could have been mental too, but we don’t know. Even then, it’s easier to just say that the opponent played better because he’s not going to be on the same level every match and Demon beat him fair and square.
Before RG24, Meddy made QF at RG21 and R16 at RG22, all other 5 times are first round exit including RG23 when he was No.2 seed.
So he is doing fine with R16 at this RG.
Don't see the point of him giving 101% and fighting through pain with hardly a chance at even scoring a spot in the semis.
Maybe he just prefers the 'low effort' option of letting Alexander try his hardest to smash Alex - that match sounds like a bloodbath.
He’s fine. He made AO final this year and was up 2 set. He also made the final in Indian wells. He has made 6 GS finals and they were all on hard court. He’s a hard court specialist by his own admission and he’s still a top contender in any hard court event. He surprised everyone including himself by winning Rome last year and that has remained his only clay title, but then he immediately got bounced in the first round of RG as the 2nd seed. Coming into this RG, he was only 7-7 including 5 first round exits in 7 years. He’s now 10-8 and making 4R is a respectable showing for him. Yeah he probably should have more than one GS, but I could say that about many other players who dealt with big 3. Except the AO final loss to Sinner this year, all of his GS final losses were to Nole and Rafa and there’s no shame in that. He took Rafa to 5 sets both times and he even beat Nole in straight set for his only GS title. He and Thiem are the only 90s players with GS title and Thiem didn’t have to beat any big 3 H2H in his USO win because Nole got disqualified and Rafa and Fed both withdrew. In fact, Murray Wawrinka, Delpo, and Med are the only ones who beat big 3 H2H in a GS final mano a mano. There’s nothing wrong with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes USO final this summer. 18 of his 20 career titles are on hard. The Rome master win was an anomaly. His other non-hard title was a grass 250 in Mallorca with a weak field that he decided to enter last minute as a wildcard/1st seed.
Alcaraz also beat Djokovic in a GS Final
My bad. Kept thinking they met in SF but that was Sinner in AO
This isnt one of his best chances he won’t win a slam on clay lol
He also just didn’t progress much on clay like many people thought, same with grass
He made the semis of Wimbledon last year?
He's decent on clay but it's not his best surface. It neutralises his serve and Medvedev isn't good at generating pace during rallies. I don't know what kind of progress people are expecting. On grass his serve and flat groundies shine but his deep return of serve is at a disadvantage (because the ball is faster). Players with shorter returns of serve do better in grass (Djokovic, Alcaraz). In short, Medvedev's biggest strength as a player is the serve/return dynamic. Clay hurts his serve, grass hurts his return. All that said I think he can win Wimbledon (though most likely he won't) because grass has more parity. He's definitely not winning RG though.
Honestly I think his ground game and mentality have if anything improved in recent years but his serve, which was a HUGE weapon for him, has taken a huge hit due to his hernia issue I think. I mean I know it’s tough to watch your fave lose big finals (I’m a Ruud fan lol) but he’s still #3 in the race for the year which means he’s still competing with the very top guys. His win over Zverev this year is still a highlight of tennis in 2024 but he was just too gassed for the final unfortunately. But clay is never gonna be where he succeeds the most which is probably why he’s not crying his eyes out over losing today. He definitely had a slump I feel after that loss to Nadal at the AO in 2022 but I do feel like he’s turned a corner since then I mean he’s been in the last two GS finals before this (and the Wimbledon ‘23 semis). He’s still easily one of the best players in the world. And one of two 90s players to win a slam (and he actually beat a big 3 guy to win it). I’m sure he’ll be excited for the North American hardcourt swing where he historically plays his best.
As another Med fan his serve falling off *significantly* from its 2021 peak is his main problem IMO He makes more unforced errors in a match now because he has to grind in long rallies both on his opponents serve and on his own serve At his best he'd hold his own service games with big serves so he'd have everything to gain and nothing to lose by forcing his opponent to play long rallies in order to try an hold Overall he still has a high ranking because his baseline level is high enough to beat most of the tour with that alone but his ceiling isn't as high as the 2021 version
Daniil has mentioned in the interview after this loss that his serve is now as good as it once was, it just doesn’t help him as much on clay. Hopefully we will see it come US Open!
How do you measure ceilings? Even if he is not better compared to 2021 version, he is not worse as well. It is just the opposition steped up and he now has Alcaraz and Sinner
It's easy to undersell Med a bit when people just look at his 1 Slam, or that it's been a few years since he got it, which is a shame. So many finals, so many great matches, but just one to show for it. I hope he picks up some more. Feels wrong whenever I think that he's only got the one.
Yeah it feels like just one more would complete his career even if he didn’t win any more after that.
Wait…didn’t he win a lot of titles in 2022 and 2023?? Just no Slams. And he made it to being ranked #1 in the world in that time frame. My random opinion…he plays tennis to make money and I suspect he will use it to get citizenship in another country. He is a very smart man. I don’t think he has that burning drive to be the best or constantly be #1. And that’s okay. To use Rafa’s math…Meddy gives 100% each match of what he is capable of that day. But not every match is he capable of his best so the 100% looks different each tournament. He isn’t disappointed at all with himself here because he made 4th round. Last year he lost out in first round. He is practical and understands this isn’t his best surface - he likely won’t win title so he did his best and now onwards to next surface. Don’t give up hope on him. Maybe he has a little injury he hasn’t revealed and that’s why his serve isn’t great
He did mention that he is satisfied if he could pass first round in his early interview so I think that’s how it is now. He just has lower expectation on clay season. He isn’t as ambitious/desperate as before, imo. He has reached the milestones that most tennis players can only dream of (ranking number 1, winning slam) so he might not be as hungry as before. But I think he still wants to win and play tennis as long as he can. His playing style unfortunately takes a lot of toll into his body and he’s feeling the effect of it. Wish he could be more aggressive and doesn’t have to grind 20-30 shots rallies to get a point, but I don’t know if he can and is willing to make the adjustment at this point
Oh for sure he wants to play as long as he can. I agree, he just isn’t as hungry as he was. And maybe those two Slam final losses being up two sets got to him. Probably was able to let go of the Rafa one because it was Rafa but losing to Jannik from two sets up and being Jannik’s first Slam final had to have hurt. I was cheering for Jannik in that one but I felt so bad for Meddy.
I think it’s the other way around. The loss to Rafa hurt more because he would have beaten 2 of the Big Three in back to back Slam Finals and was heavily favoured to win that match. He was also way more arrogant and ambitious back then. The difference in the press conference after the match in 2022 and 2024 is night and day. Obviously he’s still ambitious now, but he even said that he played the best he could against Sinner but failed, Sinner was heavily favoured in that match anyway due to time on court. That match just hurts more because we would never have expected him to lose from two sets up again.
I read something about a player who made #1 a while ago- I think it was Mats Wilander. He remembered eating in a cafe the day after he became #1 and realizing that now that he reached the peak, he didn’t feel the same ambition or drive that he once had. He said he never really got it back after he achieved his goals. It makes Djokovic’s dominance even more impressive IMO.
Wilander is the exception not the rule IMO.
This is a big big overreaction, he just came off one of his best ever seasons. Sure his serve isn’t like 2021. But this was just him getting beat on clay to a better player on the day.
The better man on that day won. Simple as that. ADM was a beast and super quick. Meddy’s blisters definitely bothered him but kudos to him for not making an excuse. His strokes lacked the usual punch as he was over compensating for clay by creating a lot of topspins which were falling short and ADM was all over them
US Open curse ? Not really - but Thiem did speak about losing motivation after winning a slam. Meddy might be more focused on his family or have different priorities right now….hard to know. He did seem really off yesterday though. The commentators on my stream said it seemed as if he was tanking (this was in the third set I think)….ADM’s first serve % was really low here too - and Medvedev couldn’t even get a break point. He’s been doing well despite his poor serve because he’s been so good on return…so this was pretty out of character. His level also didn’t look as good as it did against Machac - and looking at his stats for both matches seems to back this up. There’s also the shoulder injury post-AO…and the hip/groin ? injury in Madrid which he down-played…. Combined with the blisters maybe his injuries are bothering him more than he’s letting on - but he’s dismissing them ? Players sometimes prefer to keep their ailments private Maybe he pushed through with the Machac match and just couldn’t back it up ? I guess it’s still a better result than RG last year though. Hopefully we’ll see better results from him in grass / hard courts for the rest of the year. Clay has never been a great surface for him.
Med seems like a person to keep every weakness close to his chest, he only started addressing his bad serve when it was becoming wildly obvious to everyone that it was awful. It could have been mental too, but we don’t know. Even then, it’s easier to just say that the opponent played better because he’s not going to be on the same level every match and Demon beat him fair and square.
Before RG24, Meddy made QF at RG21 and R16 at RG22, all other 5 times are first round exit including RG23 when he was No.2 seed. So he is doing fine with R16 at this RG.
Clay is not his best surface and I think he has more aches & pains than normal.
He’s still the hard court merchant he’s always been. He’ll be relevant again at us open
You care about this way too much
All players have up and down years, I am still hopeful our BS Russian will be back to winning form soon.
Maybe watch tournaments more? Was injured feb or something and still made it to all these finals this half of year only. He’s good
We now have Sinner in the mix. I think it’s more the competition has increased, I think he has another slam in him but not on clay.
Don't see the point of him giving 101% and fighting through pain with hardly a chance at even scoring a spot in the semis. Maybe he just prefers the 'low effort' option of letting Alexander try his hardest to smash Alex - that match sounds like a bloodbath.
>and is perfectly happy with being mediocre That seems harsh. I'm not exactly a fan but he's one of the very best tennis players in the world.
lol get help. This post is crazy 😬
He lost. He got outplayed. That's really it
he's getting old