THE COST OF FAILURE: DANIIL MEDVEDEV'S COMMITMENT TO TOP 10 RETURN
Former World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev is dissatisfied with his year-end No. 13 ranking, stating he would retire if he accepted it. He is focused on improving fitness and consistency for a strong 2026 comeback.
Daniil Medvedev says he'll retire if he's ever satisfied with his ranking, making it clear he wants to be higher in the standings by the end of 2026.
The 2025 season was tough for the Russian. He only won a single match at the Grand Slams, causing him to slide down the rankings.
Medvedev finished the year ranked No. 13, marking his first season outside the world's top 10.
In 2024, he ended the season at No. 4, just 70 points from cracking the top four.
If I'm still ranked the same at the end of 2026? "I won't be happy, which is a good thing," said the 2021 US Open champ at an exhibition event in St. Petersburg.
That's why I'm still playing. If I liked my ranking, I'd probably retire.
I just hope I can play as well as I did at the end of this year because it wasn't too bad.”
Two years ago, Medvedev finished the year ranked No. 3 after making it to the Wimbledon semi-finals (losing to Carlos Alcaraz) and the US Open final (losing to Novak Djokovic).
Since then, he's had trouble getting back to that level, and he went more than two years without winning a title.
He finally broke that streak at the 2025 ATP 250 event in Almaty, beating Corentin Moutet 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in the final.
About two weeks before that, Medvedev reached the Shanghai Masters semi-finals, his first time in the final four of a Masters 1000 event since Indian Wells in 2024.
But Arthur Rinderknech came back to win 4-6, 6-2, and 6-4 and advance to the final.
"I know I can play even better than I did at the end of the season in terms of being more consistent because some matches were great," Medvedev admitted.
Like the match against [Alex] De Minaur in the quarter-finals in Shanghai. I couldn't have played better.
But I could have been more consistent. So I'm going to work on my fitness to keep up the pace and play well in several tournaments in a row, like before.
And I hope I can play well from one tournament to the next.
Medvedev kicks off his 2026 season in Adelaide from January 12 to 17, using the tournament to warm up for the Australian Open.
He's reached the final of the first Grand Slam of the year three times, losing to Djokovic in straight sets in 2021 and losing after leading two sets to love against Rafael Nadal in 2022 and Jannik Sinner in 2024.
He only has to defend 400 ranking points between the Australian tournaments and Indian Wells. This means the one-time Grand Slam champion is aiming to get back into the world's top 10 soon.
Medvedev is just 230 points behind the current world No. 10, Jack Draper.
MADRID OPEN HIT BY 17 MAJOR WITHDRAWALS, INCLUDING WORLD STARS CARLOS ALCARAZ AND DJOKOVIC
The Madrid Open field is decimated! With 17 players out, including Alcaraz, Djokovic, and Raducanu, see the full list.
The list of players dropping out of the 2026 Madrid Open has jumped to 17, covering both the women’s and men’s singles draws.
By Saturday, 13 players had already withdrawn. The biggest names? Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
Since then, four more women have pulled out, including Grand Slam champs Barbora Krejcikova and Emma Raducanu.
Madrid hosts the first clay-court WTA 1000 of the season and the second ATP Masters 1000 on clay after Monte Carlo. Both tournaments in Madrid have 96-player draws and 32 seeds, who get a first-round bye.
The women’s main draw kicks off Tuesday, and the men’s starts Wednesday. The women’s final is set for Saturday, May 2, and the men wrap things up on Sunday, May 3. Aryna Sabalenka and Casper Ruud won the singles titles last year.
Here’s a closer look at the withdrawals:
ATP Madrid Open withdrawals
Alcaraz, ranked No. 2 in the world and a two-time Madrid champion, misses out again after hurting his wrist in Barcelona. He sat out Madrid last year as well.
World No. 4 Djokovic, who’s won Madrid three times, is out as he recovers from a shoulder injury. The Serb has played only two events this year.
Taylor Fritz, yet to play a clay match in 2026, is the other ATP top-10 player stepping aside.
Here’s the full ATP withdrawal list:
Carlos Alcaraz (world No. 2) – replaced by Sebastian Ofner
Novak Djokovic (world No. 4) – replaced by Adam Walton
Taylor Fritz (world No. 8) – replaced by Roberto Bautista Agut
Holger Rune (world No. 27) – replaced by Francisco Comesana
Sebastian Korda (world No. 43) – replaced by Alexander Shevchenko
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (world No. 53) – replaced by Alexandre Muller
Arthur Cazaux (world No. 71) – replaced by Alexander Blockx
Kamil Majchrzak (world No. 73) – replaced by Thiago Agustin Tirante
WTA Madrid Open withdrawals
Reports say Emma Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champ and absent since Indian Wells, is out. Barbora Krejcikova, another major winner, is withdrawing too, alongside Sara Bejlek and McCartney Kessler.
Here’s the current WTA withdrawal list:
Emma Navarro (world No. 27) – replaced by Ashlyn Krueger
Emma Raducanu (world No. 29) – replaced by Ajla Tomljanovic
Maya Joint (world No. 30) – replaced by Moyuka Uchijima.
Sara Bejlek (world No. 34) – replaced by Viktorija Golubic
McCartney Kessler (world No. 48) – replaced by Kamilla Rakhimova
Barbora Krejcikova (world No. 52) – replaced by Zeynep Sonmez
Sonay Kartal (world No. 55) – replaced by Petra Marcinko
Varvara Gracheva (world No. 59) – replaced by Eva Lys
Veronika Kudermetova (world No. 62) – replaced by Taylor Townsend
EMMA RADUCANU DROPS TO NO. 29 AS VIRAL ILLNESS DELAYS COMPETITIVE TENNIS RETURN
Emma Raducanu falls to World No. 29. Discover her Madrid Open comeback plans and the viral illness that halted her WTA season.
Emma Raducanu has slipped further down the WTA rankings as she focuses on regaining her full fitness. At 23, she has faced several interruptions since her breakthrough win at the US Open in 2021.
While Raducanu stands out as a major title winner, having claimed her US Open victory after navigating the qualifiers, she reached her highest ranking at No. 10 less than a year later. Since then, she hasn’t added another singles title to her name, working instead on finding steadiness in her game. She’s aiming to kick off her clay-court season at the Madrid Open later this month. Yet, her ranking has dipped ahead of that event, partly because she withdrew from both the Miami Open and the Linz Open.
Currently listed at No. 29, down one spot from 28, Raducanu hasn’t gained ranking points recently due to recovering from a viral illness. Her last appearance was at Indian Wells in March, where she exited in the third round against Amanda Anisimova.
Her decision to miss Miami and Linz came after falling ill. Reports from BBC Sport noted that she started feeling unwell in February but kept competing until she pulled out of the Austrian tournament.
As Raducanu prepares for a potential comeback at Madrid, which kicks off on April 21, Romania’s Sorana Cirstea has moved ahead in the rankings. At 36, Cirstea climbed three places to 26th after reaching the quarter-finals in Linz.
Interestingly, Raducanu and Cirstea met earlier this year at the Transylvania Open final in Cirstea’s home country. Cirstea won decisively, 6-0, 6-2, though Raducanu admitted she wasn’t at her best even before the match started.
“In Cluj, I picked up a virus at the start of the tournament,” Raducanu shared with the Guardian in February. “I was dealing with that and its after-effects... which lasted for three weeks. I’ve been trying to shake it off. The Middle East trip was really tough for me.”
It seems Raducanu is keen to recover fully before stepping back onto the court. Looking back, Aryna Sabalenka took the 2023 Madrid Open title with a 6-3, 7-6 win over Coco Gauff in the final.
