After losing to Lerner Qian in the second round of the Australian Open, Medvedev stopped in the second round of Rotterdam in his second tournament of the season, and the second seed and world No. 7 lost to the 97th-ranked qualifier.

The 28-year-old Medvedev is already a veteran. This week, although he is still ranked No.7 in the world, he has been out of title drought for more than a year and a half. Two years ago, Medvedev also bottomed out in Rotterdam to win the title, but two years later, he still hasn't been able to find a way out of his predicament.

The match against Bellucci was very representative and Medvedev's technical flaws were completely exposed. In the game, Medvedev and his opponent had many exchanges in front of the net, but the opponent's return ball was very decisive, forming a crossing again and again. In addition, Bellucci also served several times during the game and forced Medvedev to the net, thus targeting his poor midfield skills. In this regard, Medvedev seemed quite helpless, completely disrupting the rhythm of his game and the pace of attack, and finally could only rely on wrestling to vent his anger, but he accidentally hit himself.

On the one hand, Medvedev's predicament comes from the fact that he is getting older and playing in a mutually exclusive way, and his physical weakness makes Medvedev no longer able to win matches purely by "grinding" as he did when he was young, and his pace is also slowing down, and he is unable to cope with the increasingly fast pace of hitting in the current tennis world. On the other hand, it comes from injuries, in recent years, Medvedev's injuries have continued, back injuries and shoulder injuries have caused his serve to be greatly reduced, and he has lost his serve as a barrier for his game, and relying purely on "grinding" cannot ensure that the rhythm of the game is completely in his own hands.

In this regard, some netizens commented, "As a big player with a height of nearly two meters, Mei is always good at baseline defense and holding, paying to run to pull, and finding the gap in scoring in the multi-shot tug-of-war." He relied on this kraft candy style to become one of the top in the fall of 2019. But the style of play is distinctive, and at the same time means that it is very easy to target. Medvedev's overly conservative style of play has given Medvedev a "sweetness", but the extremely low return position actually gives the opponent a lot of room to operate. In the match against Medvedev, the opponent can serve the ball with the under, serve to the net, and even cut to force the net is a good combat routine against him, in addition, the small ball tactic is also recognized as a tactic that can effectively disrupt the rhythm of Medvedev's game.

However, on this point, in fact, Medvedev once said in an interview, he said that he is not afraid of the opponent's serve and net, which gives him a clear goal to counterattack. But as netizens said, "With the increase of age, in the case of speed and strength are becoming less and less dominant, the entire playing system also highlights a fatal problem: the lack of active scoring ability." Without offense, there is no suppression, and without suppression, it is difficult to mentally suppress the opponent, and the game can easily become wavering and unpredictable. ”

On the eve of the Rotterdam game, Medvedev ended his cooperation with Simon, who grinded Djokovic out of 100 UEs that year, which probably proves that Medvedev wants to continue to insist on defense and hold each other, which is not going to work. Perhaps, he himself knows very well: what is most needed now is to find the ability to take the initiative to attack in order to stabilize the position at the top of the ranks.

Some netizens' advice to Medvedev is that it is better to simply retire directly. However, in this regard, Medvedev once again emphasized that he has no plans to retire at present after stopping in the second round in Rotterdam.

"I don't think my retirement is going to happen anytime soon. I still love tennis and I'm still winning a lot of money, so I'm going to keep playing until I can't play. Of course, if I fall out of the top 100, then I don't know...... But I don't think that's likely to happen. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to get back to form. The question is when? Tomorrow? Next month? 12 months later? I don't know much about that. ”(Source: Tennis Home Author: Lu Xiaotian)