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Daniil Medvedev stopped playing and went to his bench after receiving a warning in the middle of his second-round match at the Paris Masters. The No. 4 seed was given a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct when he hit the court in frustration at 4-4 in the second set. Medvedev had already lost the opening set to Ignacio Buse. He didn’t respond, but walked to the side of the court, put his racket in his bag, and sat down. Buse was left waiting at the baseline, and the fans – most of whom were cheering for the Peruvian – soon began to boo and jeer.
Medvedev broke in the second set and led 4-3 (40-0) on his own serve. It looked as though he was on his way to forcing a decider, but he suddenly suffered a huge collapse, and Buse broke back for 4-4.
It was understandably frustrating for the former world No. 1. And after losing the first point of the 4-4 game on his opponent’s serve, Medvedev took a swipe at the court with his racket. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and chair umpire Adel Nour announced a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Medvedev stood for a brief moment, looking semi-surprised. He then calmly walked to his bench, zipped his racket into his bag, and sat down. The umpire radioed for the supervisor to come to the court, explaining what had happened.
A mixture of jeers, boos and cheers rang out around the stands of the smaller Court 1 as supervisor Cedric Mourier quickly came out. “I [gave him] a code violation because Daniil hit the racket here, like scratch on court, and it happened here again. And the last time, he made it inside the centre line, so I gave him unsportsmanlike conduct. He is not happy with this,” Nour told Mourier.
Medvedev and the supervisor had a long conversation in French before the No. 4 seed turned back to the umpire, speaking in English. “How many times [did I hit the court]?” Medvedev asked the umpire.
“Almost like five,” Nour replied. “Five? What if it’s not five? You say sorry after the match if it’s not five?” Medvedev asked. The umpire then mentioned that there were two scratches on the court, and that his guess was “approximate”.
The 30-year-old continued: “Two? You just said five. Five times. Five times. You give me your word that it’s five times? Approximately?” Some spectators continued to boo, but Medvedev stopped and walked back to the baseline, resuming the match. Nour asked the crowd to be quiet.
Medvedev played on, and Buse held serve before breaking in the final game to seal a 6-4 6-4 victory. The fourth seed did not shake hands with Nour after the match and swiftly left the court. He has already qualified for the ATP Finals and will be back in action in Turin later this month.
The world No. 5 has had some run-ins with officials in recent weeks. He was defaulted from the China Open semi-finals when he unintentionally struck a spectator with a ball. Novak Djokovic was serving for the match when Medvedev swatted a ball away, intending to just push it to the side so it didn’t fly off. Instead, it made contact with someone behind the baseline.
While Medvedev has not explicitly said so, he seems to have appealed the decision and has repeatedly apologised publicly to the spectator. Last week in Vienna, the world No. 5 then started slapping and hitting the court with his hand, suggesting the ATP would prefer it if players hurt themselves rather than hitting the court with their rackets, which would incur a warning, as he received in Paris.
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