Daniil Medvedev admitted that he didn’t want to be disqualified from the Rolex Paris Masters after refusing to play during part of the second set. The world No 3 sat on his bench in protest when he was booed by the crowd but eventually resumed play after receiving a time violation. And Medvedev has now explained why he didn’t want to continue until the fans were quiet.
Medvedev lost a tight three-set match to Grigor Dimitrov on Wednesday as the world No 17 came through 6-3 6-7(4) 7-6(2). The contest was full of drama, with Dimitrov needing seven match points to close it out. But the real theatrics came at 5-5 in the second set after the Russian had failed to serve it out.
The 27-year-old was booed when he threw his racket while stepping up to serve. After shushing the crowd, he eventually retreated to his bench and told the umpire he wouldn’t be playing until they stopped. But Medvedev received a time violation for delaying the game and decided to continue.
Medvedev has now admitted that he didn’t want to be disqualified for taking a stand. “So what happened is I throw the racket, I get booed. Normal. I don’t see a problem with that,” the 2020 Paris-Bercy champion started.
Instead, Medvedev’s issue came when the jeering continued into his service motion. He added: “I go to serve, they applause or something. But I want to serve. They shouldn’t applause. So I still serve. The referee was talking during this so Grigor was not ready. Okay, that happens, but I get booed. I didn’t see why, so I didn’t want to play. That’s actually the end of the story.”
It wasn’t the first time this year that the 27-year-old refused to continue a match while a crowd was booing him but Medvedev decided to change his stance once the chair umpire gave him a time violation for delaying the game. “Then I was, like, okay. Till they boo, I’m not going to play,” he continued.
“But Bercy crowd doesn’t stop to boo. So I was, like, okay. Then when I got a code, I was, like, do I really want to get disqualified and finish the match on this note? No. So I went to play.” Medvedev – who speaks fluent French and lives in Monaco – also stressed that the issue isn’t one with French crowds in general.
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“I think it just depends the tournament, the way I act, the way the crowd acts. So it’s like all coming together,” he explained. But Medvedev still made a dig at the Bercy crowd in particular, adding: “In general, I have a lot of French friends, and they don’t seem to like very much this tournament.
“Maybe there is a reason. Me, generally, yeah, I played much better here without the crowd, so that’s all I can say.”
A champion at the tournament in 2020 when it was played behind closed doors, Medvedev didn’t want to say that the Paris Masters had the “worst” crowd of all the events on the ATP Tour.
Medvedev said: “I don’t want to say the worst. Well, we have 60 players. 30 of them will love it; 10 players will think that it’s not relevant, so on and so forth. So I’m not going to say anything. I don’t want to say bad things about this tournament in general.
“It’s just that it doesn’t work. Every match is the same. Things like that happen. As for some tournaments, there are some tournaments to which I like to come back, and here, well, I have problems with the crowd. It happens.”
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