Medvedev Threatens to Stop Playing in Paris After Warning for Scraping Court With Racket

Daniil Medvedev lost 6-4, 6-4 to Ignacio Buse in the second round of the Paris Masters on Wednesday, and the scoreline was the quietest part of the afternoon. Midway through the second set, the Russian scraped his racket along the court, drew a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct, packed his racket away, sat down, and told the tournament supervisor he might retire on the spot. He finished the match, refused to shake the umpire’s hand, and withdrew from the doubles. Paris has never been kind to Medvedev, and this was the edition that proved it again.

What set Medvedev off in Paris?

A racket scrape at 4-4 in the second set. Sportskeeda reports Medvedev led 4-3 and 40-0 on his serve, lost that game, then lost the first point of Buse’s service game and dragged his racket along the surface in frustration. Chair umpire Adel Nour had seen him do it before in the match, and this time he gave him a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. TennisUpToDate reports the warning landed during a changeover, with the cameras on Medvedev as he questioned it, and the exchange that followed lasted long enough for the supervisor to be called to the court. The trigger was small, a scrape on a hard court, and the reaction was everything that followed.

What did Medvedev say to the umpire and the supervisor?

He argued about the arithmetic. TennisUpToDate reports Medvedev first turned to supervisor Cedric Mourier and asked what would happen if he retired, explaining that his legs hurt and he was in a lot of pain. Then he turned on the warning itself, saying in French: “No! That’s a racket scrape and I get an unsportsmanlike warning for nothing? I don’t feel like playing, I’m calling the physio.” When Nour explained he had counted five gestures towards the ground and two marks left on the court, Medvedev shot back: “How many times? Five times? What happens if it’s not five? Do you apologize after the match?” Sportskeeda reports he pressed the same point a different way when Nour pointed to the marks: “5!? And what if it wasn’t 5, do you apologize after the match?” and then, “Approximately!? But are you looking at the court or not?” He ended the discussion with one more question for Nour: “Were you not on the court or what?”

Did Medvedev actually stop playing?

For several minutes, yes. EssentiallySports reports Medvedev walked to his bench, packed his racket away and sat down, and the crowd booed as Nour called Mourier to the court. Sportskeeda reports the sequence in full: Medvedev told Mourier his legs hurt, asked for the physio, and raised the possibility of retiring. Mourier replied that the physio could not be used as an excuse, since the player was merely unhappy with the warning. Medvedev then made the injury claim explicit, telling Mourier: “I just tore something in my leg. If the physio decides there’s nothing wrong, I’ll play. But I tore my adductor, and I’ve been playing for seven weeks.” Play eventually resumed, Buse held serve, and then broke Medvedev in the final game. The retirement threat turned out to be a threat, and the match ended the ordinary way, with a handshake missing.

Why did the umpire hand out the warning?

Because the scrape was repeated, and the rules treat repeated racket abuse as unsportsmanlike conduct whether or not the player meant to damage the court. Nour told Mourier he had given the warning because Medvedev hit his racket on the court and left lines and scratches, Sportskeeda reports, and the count was the issue: five gestures, two marks. Medvedev’s defence was that a scrape is not an offence, and that the numbers did not add up. The same strict logic has governed the sport’s smaller calls all season, from a let being replayed regardless of who it inconvenienced to Terence Atmane’s thrown racket in Shanghai qualifying, which stopped at the side wall and spared him a default before he retired and apologized. The umpire does not have to prove intent. He has to count the marks.

What happened once play resumed?

Buse closed it out, and Medvedev left without the usual courtesies. Sportskeeda reports Buse held serve after the delay, then broke Medvedev in the final game to win 6-4, 6-4 in what was their first tour-level meeting. The 22-year-old Peruvian had already taken the first set, and the second-set argument never changed the direction of the match. EssentiallySports reports Medvedev did not shake Nour’s hand before leaving the court, and subsequently withdrew from the doubles draw with partner Alexander Erler, so their match against Tim Putz and Kevin Krawietz did not go ahead. It was the fourth second-round defeat in the last five editions for Medvedev in Paris, Tennis Temple reports, and the fifth time in nine main-draw appearances that he has lost his opening match there, after a first-round bye this week.

What did Medvedev say about the Paris courts?

He blamed the surface for a season of frustration spilling over at once. Sportskeeda reports Medvedev trained his ire on the Bercy court conditions after the match, calling it a deceptively sluggish layout that starved him of rhythm. “The ball doesn’t go from the racket. It’s fast but not fast,” he said. “I mean, because I can feel that the surface is kind of fast, but to make a winner is almost impossible.” He pointed to his 2020 title run at the same event, when he also started poorly, losing the first set to Alex de Minaur before winning 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, and said this year he did not have enough time to find the same groove. The court complaint is the part of the story that will follow him to Turin, because the ATP Finals use a fast indoor hard court too, and Medvedev’s answer in Paris was that he could not find a winner on one.

What does this mean for the ATP Finals?

He is going, and he does not sound happy about it. Sportskeeda reports Medvedev has qualified for a seventh time and the season-ending event in Turin begins on November 15. He secured the place by beating Adrian Mannarino in the Vienna quarterfinals, and his season has brought four titles, in Brisbane, Dubai, Hangzhou and Almaty. But after the Paris defeat he told reporters: “I don’t want to play anymore this season, but I have to.” The context makes that line land harder than a throwaway complaint. Medvedev was disqualified at the China Open in October after a ball he hit struck a spectator in the eye, and Paris is now the second tournament in a month where his behaviour, rather than his tennis, became the story. The ATP Finals field includes another Paris casualty: Alexander Zverev lost his first match as world No. 1 in the same building, and complained about the balls while he was at it. Paris produced two meltdowns in one week, and Medvedev’s was the louder one.