After 20 years on the professional tennis circuit, Mikhail Kukushkin is preparing to walk away from a game that looks increasingly different from the one he entered. The Kazakh veteran, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 39 and won an ATP title, is witnessing a generational shift as younger players hit harder and reshape the men’s tour. With Gaël Monfils, Stan Wawrinka and other familiar names also approaching the end of their careers, Kukushkin is saying goodbye to more than just tennis.

Kukushkin is playing the final tournament of his career at the Almaty Open in his home country of Kazakhstan. His farewell began on a positive note, too, as he defeated Greek qualifier Stefanos Sakellaridis 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) on October 19 to secure another match in his final week on tour. The victory took more than two hours, with both sets decided in tiebreaks.

But the emotions surrounding his exit have proved harder to manage than the tennis itself.

“It’s been 20 years on the tour and now I’m playing my last tournament. It’s crazy and I’m still processing it,” Kukushkin told CLAY. He felt ready to retire before arriving in Almaty, but the familiar routines of practice sessions and conversations with fellow players brought home what he was about to leave behind.

“I’ve done this my whole life, but at the same time I know it’s time to leave tennis,” he admitted.

For a player who has spent two decades traveling from tournament to tournament, the decision was not driven by a single disappointing result. Kukushkin pointed instead to a longer struggle to get his ranking back to where he wanted it.

“My ranking recently, over the last few years, wasn’t where I wanted it to be,” he explained. Even when he felt he was playing well and winning matches last year, the results did not translate into the ranking improvement he had hoped for. That disconnect helped convince him that the time had come to stop.

There are parts of the professional grind he will not miss, either. The travel, the hours of training and fitness work, and the mental strain of losing week after week have all taken their toll.

Kukushkin put it bluntly: “We lose about 99% of the weeks, even when we give our best, so I definitely won’t miss that.” He still believes retirement is the right decision, even if leaving a sport that has shaped most of his adult life feels strange.

His farewell also arrives during a year in which several familiar names from his generation are leaving the tour. Gaël Monfils, Stan Wawrinka, Kei Nishikori and Roberto Bautista Agut are among the players born in the 1980s whose careers are coming to an end in 2026. Kukushkin sees a clear divide between the tennis they played and the game taking shape around the younger generation.

“It’s crazy that so many good players are retiring in the same year,” he said. “The days when we played together are gone, now everything is different.”

The difference, in his view, is visible in the way the next generation approaches matches. Players are hitting harder and taking a more aggressive approach, and new faces seem to emerge every week. Kukushkin admitted that the change is a little sad, but he understands that the sport cannot stand still.

“I’m definitely going to miss those years and those tournaments,” he said.

It is the end of an era he shared with players who once formed the familiar core of the men’s game. His next chapter will still involve tennis: he opened a small academy in Spain during the summer and plans to coach there after his final tournament.

Gaël Monfils’ retirement takes a painful turn amid Elina Svitolina separation

Kukushkin is not the only player from that generation whose farewell has taken an unexpected emotional turn. Monfils, the former world No. 6, had planned to end his career after the 2026 season, with the Paris Masters in November expected to provide a final appearance in front of his home fans. Instead, the Frenchman has already been listed as retired by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.

The development came to wider attention around the same time his wife, Ukrainian star Elina Svitolina, announced that they were ending their marriage after five years. In a statement shared on October 19, Svitolina spoke about the emotional toll Russia’s war against Ukraine had taken on her, including sleepless nights, self-doubt and the feeling that she was gradually losing herself. She said she had come to understand that she needed to find her way back to herself outside the marriage.

Svitolina was also careful not to frame their separation as a story of blame. She credited Monfils with standing by her through difficult periods and said their daughter, Skai, would remain their priority. “Our marriage is ending, but our family is not,” she wrote, asking for kindness and privacy as they navigated the change.

The timing has led to reports that the separation played a role in Monfils bringing his retirement forward. Daily Mail, citing French newspaper L’Équipe, reported that the news hit the Frenchman hard and that tennis had suddenly lost its meaning for him. Monfils has not publicly confirmed that explanation in the material available, so the reported connection should be treated with caution rather than as an established account of his decision.

Monfils’ last match appears to have been his second-round defeat to Learner Tien at the US Open in September 2026. Across his career, he won 13 ATP singles titles and reached the semifinals at the French Open in 2008 and the US Open in 2016. His planned farewell in Paris will apparently not happen as intended.

For Kukushkin, the end is a decision shaped by years of frustration with rankings and the sense that his time in the sport has run its course. For Monfils, the circumstances surrounding his apparent early exit are more personal and, according to reports, deeply painful. Their situations are different, but both departures underline the changing landscape Kukushkin described: a generation that shared the court for years is now stepping aside, leaving a very different game behind.