Daniil Medvedev’s Wimbledon ended in the third round on Friday, the eighth seed beaten by the unseeded German Jan-Lennard Struff 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 7-5. The defeat was the latest marker of a decline that has become most visible on the surface that once signaled his rise.
The reversal. Two years ago, grass was where Medvedev remade his ceiling. He reached the Wimbledon semifinals in 2023 — a career-best at a tournament he had called his weakest — and repeated the run in 2024, beating Jannik Sinner in five sets before losing to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz. Before that breakthrough, his best showing at the All England Club had been the fourth round in 2021.
Since then the trajectory has inverted. Medvedev lost in the first round in 2025 to Benjamin Bonzi, his first opening-round defeat at Wimbledon, and now falls in the third. In two years he has gone from back-to-back semifinals to consecutive early exits on the surface that had become his most reliable at the majors.
The wider slide. The pattern extends beyond Wimbledon. Medvedev reached world No. 1 in 2022 and has contested six major finals, winning the 2021 US Open. But he dropped out of the top 10 in 2025 for the first time since 2023, endured a title drought of more than two years that ended only at the Almaty Open in October, and split with longtime coach Gilles Cervara before hiring Thomas Johansson and Rohan Goetzke.
The match. Struff controlled the decisive moments, serving strongly and winning both tiebreaks before edging the third set 7-5. Medvedev, who has built his game on defense and depth, could not force the extended rallies that reward it, and rarely threatened the German’s serve.
What it means. At 30, Medvedev is not out of the top tier, but the grass results tell the clearest version of his current story. The surface that lifted him to consecutive semifinals now measures the distance he has fallen from that level, and his route back to the second week of a major looks steeper than it did two summers ago.
