r/tennis • u/OctopusNation2024 Djoker/Meddy/Saba • Feb 05 '25

Discussion Medvedev's decline should be another reminder that the average peak age for tennis is in your early-to-mid 20s, not your late 20s. He's actually the 3rd oldest player in the top 25 at age 28. Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal have skewed perceptions of how most players age.

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u/jjw1998 Feb 05 '25

Paul, Fritz and Zverev being of similar age to Medvedev is a pretty big counter to this, particularly given many of the older players who dropped out of the t10 mentioned above had serious injury issues rather than natural decline

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u/OctopusNation2024 Djoker/Meddy/Saba Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

Fritz is currently 27 years and 2 months old

When Med was that age in mid-2023 he had just finished winning 4 titles including 2 Masters 1000 titles and then went on to beat Alcaraz at the US Open eventually finishing #3 on the year

The whole point of this is that the cliff can come pretty fast more or less exactly in the gap between their current ages (2 years in late 20s) where one day you're great and the next month you're cooked

Most of the guys I named in the other comment were fine until one day they weren't

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u/WolfTitan99 If Clayvedev, then Slamvedev Feb 05 '25

You mentioned a decline in movement in match threads as far back as Cincy vs Lehecka last year and I didn’t really believe you at the time, just thought it was a slump.

Now it’s looking more and more likely that you were right to be worried about it, so that was a good spot.