Daniil Medvedev has acknowledged that he will know the time has come to retire from tennis when he is satisfied with his ranking. The Russian, who claimed his only Grand Slam title to date after defeating Novak Djokovic at the 2021 US Open, will end the year as the world No. 13 following a difficult season on the court.
Medvedev has consistently found himself in the higher echelons of the tennis world rankings since breaking into the top 10 for the first time in 2019. He had two spells as world No. 1 in 2022 and finished last year as the world No. 5. But 2025 hasn’t been kind to him.
Medvedev has faltered since the start of this year and failed to make it beyond the first round at the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open after being knocked out in the second round at the Australian Open.
And discussing his ranking at an exhibition event in St Petersburg, he explained: “If I finish 2026 in the same ranking? That wouldn’t satisfy me much, and that’s a good thing.
“That’s why I keep playing tennis. If I were satisfied with my ranking, I think it would be time to retire.
Despite his struggles on the court, Medvedev found some form towards the end of the year and claimed his first ATP Tour title in almost two-and-a-half years when he clinched victory at the Almaty Open in October.
The 29-year-old, who threw away a two-set lead against Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final in 2022 before doing the same thing against Jannik Sinner two years later, overcame Corentin Moutet in the Almaty Open showpiece match.
He reached the semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters a fortnight before that triumph and also progressed to the quarter-finals at the Paris Masters in November.
And he added: “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.
“But I know I can play even better than at the end of the season in terms of consistency. Because some matches were fantastic. 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.”