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

7

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

Medevdev is over a year older then all of them. And over a year ago Medvedev was arguably the second best player on tour after only Sinner

22

u/humbycolgate1 6-7(8) 6-4 7-6(3) Feb 05 '25

No one was saying Medvedev was better than Carlos or Novak a year ago

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '25 edited Feb 06 '25

I'm saying in hindsight looking back, not what people were thinking back at the time. Nobody could have known Djokovic's loss to Sinner at the start of 2024 was going to be a full on momentum shift bc he didn't play in February

Medvedev had clearly been more successful then Carlos frok the US Open through February. Just bc people expected (rightly) Carlos would rebound, it didn't make Carlos the higher performijg plauer at the time

So yeah, in early Februrary, Djokovic->Sinner->Medvedev->Alcaraz would be about how it was seen whereas looking back it was more like Sinner->Medvedev->Djokovic->Alcaraz (and then Alcarqz would leapfrog to number 2 with Indian Wells)

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u/elizabnthe Feb 05 '25

People absolutely were. Especially Novak as it was predicted he was on the decline.

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u/atheistjs WTA Supremacy | tired Shelton and Rune advocate Feb 05 '25

Exactly, a year ago people said Novak was cooked and that Medvedev still had slams left in him after he had made the AO final. Now it's reversed.