Five players who went backwards in 2025 – the biggest flops of the ATP Tour season
The ATP Tour season has come to an end and aside from the dominant duo of world No 1 Carlos Alcaraz and his nearest rival Jannik Sinner, most players will look back on 2025 reflecting they could have done more.
Alcaraz and Sinner’s dominance at the top of the men’s game has been so complete that question marks are being asked about the chasing pack, who don’t seem to be able to lay a glove on their two players running away with all the top prizes.
Many of that chasing pack were also struggling to close the gap on Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic when they were the kings of the men’s game, so is there any way back for a collection of players who continue to knock on the door and continue to come up short?
Here is your Tennis365 guide to the five men who are enjoying the end-of-season holidays lamenting what might have been.
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Alexander Zverev
World ranking: 3
Record in 2025: 57-25
Being ranked at No 3 in the world is a fine achievement, but it feels like Zverev’s career has gone backwards this year.
His booming serve has allowed him to win enough matches to sustain a high ranking, but he has come up short time and against against Alcaraz and Sinner and the gap between the German and those two champions is widening.
Alarmingly for Zverev, he was also getting beaten by lower-ranked players at the end of the season, as his confidence and self-belief appeared to have taken a serious battering.
Zverev has plenty of ranking points to defend in the opening weeks of 2026 and unless he finds his form quickly, he could slide out of the top 10 in the rankings.
Daniil Medvedev
World ranking: 13
Record in 2025: 41-23
This Russian maverick has been a fixture at the top of the men’s game for many years and is among a select band of players who won a Grand Slam in the era dominated by Djokovic, yet the wheels fell off Medvedev’s career in alarming fashion this year.
He was ranked at No 5 at the end of 2024 and headed into the off-season at No 13, with only flickering signs that his form is coming back to life in the final weeks of the season.
His temper was arguably more memorable than his tennis in 2025 and Medvedev’s ranking will only go one way if he fails to find a winning formula again.
Andrey Rublev
World ranking: 16
Record in 2025: 34-25
Rublev threw everything at the 2025 season, entering plenty of tournaments and trying to find solutions to his slide in fortunes.
After a run to the last 16 at the US Open, he lost four matches in a row in September and October, with his exasperation on display as his emotions boiled over.
After Rublev opened up to Tennis365 about his anger-management issues a year ago, tennis fans have thrown their support behind a competitor who always gives so much to the cause, but his game appears to be going in the wrong direction.
Jakub Mensik
World ranking: 19
Record in 2025: 33-20
Mensik enjoyed the best moment of his career so far as he won the Miami Open in March, beating Novak Djokovic in the final.
That victory inevitably raised expectations around this 20-year-old and so far, he has failed to live up to his new billing.
A slide in form an injury problems have troubled Mensik, but he would have been hoping for more after that memorable win in Miami and when those 1,000 points drop off his ranking in March, he could slide rapidly down the rankings.
Stefanos Tsitsipas
World ranking: 34
Record in 2025: 22-18
Tsitispas ended 2024 at No 11 in the rankings, with his backwards trajectory continuing in the season that just concluded.
He has changed coaches, dealt with injuries, lost his focus, been through a break-up with girlfriend Paula Badosa and generally had a miserable season.
The Greek star has not won more than two matches at any tournament since reaching the quarter-finals in Barcelona in April and he was forced to pull out of that event due to injury.
What comes next for Tsitsipas is unclear and if he doesn’t find his form quickly at the start of 2026, his career at the top may be over.
