Daniil Medvedev makes bold retirement comment as he reveals when it ‘would be time’ to hang up racket
Daniil Medvedev says that he would retire if he were ‘satisfied’ with his current ranking, vowing to finish 2026 higher up the standings.
The Russian had a disappointing 2025 season overall, claiming just a single match victory at the Grand Slams and slipping down the rankings.
As a result, Medvedev ended the year ranked as the world No 13 – his first season with a year-end ranking outside of the world’s top 10.
He had finished the 2024 season ranked as the world No 4, just 70 points shy of finishing in the top four.
“If I finish 2026 in the same ranking? That wouldn’t satisfy me much, and that’s a good thing,” said the 2021 US Open champion, when asked about his current standing during an exhibition event in St Petersburg.
“That’s why I keep playing tennis. If I were satisfied with my ranking, I think it would be time to retire.
“So I just hope I can play at least as well as I did at the end of this year, because it wasn’t bad.”
Just two years ago, Medvedev had ended the year as the world No 3 as a result of a run to the semi-finals of Wimbledon (losing to Carlos Alcaraz) and the showpiece match at the US Open (losing to Nova Djokovic).
The Russian has struggled to fully recapture that same form, best marked by his inability to lift a title for more than two years.
However, that drought ended at the 2025 edition of the ATP 250 event in Almaty, where he outlasted Corentin Moutet 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in the final.
Just two weeks prior, Medvedev had reached the Shanghai Masters at the semi-finals, his first appearance in the last four of any Masters 1000 event since Indian Wells in 2024.
Ultimately, however, it was Arthur Rinderknech who battled back to claim a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory and a place in the final.
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“But I know I can play even better than at the end of the season in terms of consistency, because some matches were fantastic,” Medvedev later acknowledged.
“For example, the match against [Alex] De Minaur in the quarter-finals in Shanghai. You can’t play better than that.”
“However, in terms of consistency, I could have played better. So I’m going to work on my fitness so I can keep up the pace and play well in several tournaments in a row, like before.
“And, of course, from a tennis perspective, I just hope I can play well from one tournament to the next.”
Medvedev will begin his 2026 season in Adelaide, January 12-17, utilising the tournament as a warm-up for the Australian Open.
He has reached the showpiece match of the season’s first Grand Slam on three occasions, losing in straight sets against Djokovic in 2021, and – most heartbreakingly – falling from a two-sets-to-love lead against Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Jannik Sinner in 2024.
The three-time Australian Open finalist is only defending 400 ranking points between the Australian tournaments and Indian Wells, meaning that the one-time Grand Slam champion will be eyeing an early return to the world’s top 10.
Medvedev sits just 230 points short of the current world No 10, Jack Draper.
