Medvedev openly mocked the judge at Wimbledon. The audience laughed and applauded

Daniil Medvedev came to Wimbledon 2023 as one of the favorites, but six years ago he was just making his way to the top of the rankings. The 21-year-old tennis player, unexpectedly for many, beat the third racket of the world and could count on passing into the later stages of the competition.

However, one strange situation drastically changed the game in the second round of the tournament. The arbitrator on the tower made a decision not in favor of Medvedev, because of which he made a scandal.

Turned the game, but lost

In 2017, Daniil made his debut at the most prestigious grass tournament of the season and in the first round he beat Stan Wawrinka, who at that time was the third racket of the world. In the next match, Medvedev met with the Belgian Ruben Bemelmans, who was on the 124th line of the ATP rating. Literally everyone predicted victory for the Russian and already picked up opponents with whom he would meet next. However, Danya sensationally lost.

From the very beginning of the match, the game of our tennis player did not work out: he constantly made mistakes on the back line and was very nervous. Medvedev gave the Belgian two sets, but when the opponent began to make gross mistakes, he was able to turn the game around.

By the final set, the 21-year-old athlete looked much fresher than the Belgian, he just felt the game and began to confidently earn points. It seemed that now the Russian would crush Ruben and win. But on the court there was a strange incident that radically changed the course of the game. Bemelmans shot out in length, but the referee on the tower – Mariana Alves – did not see this. Medvedev began to swear, accuse the judge of bias and demand the appearance of a supervisor. Somehow, Alves was still able to calm the Russian and continue the game, but the idyll did not last long: after a couple of minutes, the tennis player again began to call the supervisor. He came out, but urged the Russian to pull himself together and continue the game.

Dana did not like this arrangement. At every opportunity, he entered into verbal skirmishes and tried with all his might to achieve a replacement of the judge. Ruben did not get into any showdowns, he calmly sat and recovered, trying not to waste his strength on empty talk. And then he went out and calmly achieved victory.

Daniil Medvedev / Photo: © Photonews / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

After the defeat, Danya shook hands with both the Belgian and the referee, but when he approached his bench, he put on a real show. He took out a wallet from his bag, and from there a handful of coins began to defiantly throw them towards Alves, who at that moment was leaving the tower. By the way, the audience liked this performance: some were at a loss from what was happening, while others laughed and clapped.

“I’m sorry it happened this way”

But after the match, Medvedev had to apologize for his behavior.

– The match was difficult for me, I was very upset with the way I played. And it affected my behavior. I’m sorry it all turned out this way. Sometimes it happens that you are unhappy with the referee. But I don’t remember exactly what I said to her. Why did I throw coins at the judge? I was just upset, it didn’t really matter. It was stupid. I don’t even remember what the denomination of the coins was. Immediately after the match, I regretted what I had done,” Medvedev explained after the match.

In addition to public apologies, Danya lost a decent amount. For warnings during the game, he gave 4 thousand dollars to the Wimbledon treasury, the total penalties amounted to 3 thousand dollars, and the scandalous gesture – 7.5 thousand. In general, the Russian “gave” the tournament 14.5 thousand dollars.

Since then, Wimbledon has been on the list of Medvedev’s least favorite starts. This is the only Grand Slam tournament in which he did not reach the quarterfinals. Let’s hope that this year the statistics will be corrected.

Xenia Antonova