Medvedev sorry for coin-throwing saga
He appeared to have made his mark at Wimbledon when he beat the US Open champion Stan Wawrinka in the first round – but Daniil Medvedev was merely warming up.
After he had lost to Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium, Medvedev departed from the All England Club with a show of world-class dissent.
After working his way back from two sets down, the Russian found himself two games up in the deciding set. But then he slipped to 5-2 behind.
Getting ever-more perplexed with umpire Mariana Alves’s decision-making – she overruled him five times during heated exchanges in the set – he asked for the Portuguese official to be changed. The Wimbledon supervisor refused.
Clearly disturbed by what was happening, after Medvedev had succumbed to a 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3 defeat, he took his wallet from his bag and, as he was leaving Court 16, threw a handful of coins at the umpire’s by-now vacated chair.
“I was disappointed with the result,” he explained. “The match was not going well and in heat of the moment I did a bad thing and I apologise for this.”
The clearly contrite 21-year-old refused to confirm that his coin-tossing was a visual implication that the umpire had been bribed. “I don’t know why I did it,” he insisted. “I was packing my things and I saw my wallet. I don’t even remember what the coins were. Straight away I realised it was a stupid thing to do.”
This is not the first time Medvedev has given public airing to his frustrations with an umpire. In Savannah last year, he was defaulted after accusing the official of siding with his opponent Donald Young because they were both black.
Although not prepared to seek her out, Medvedev suggested he would apologise to Alves “if I see her”. He was sanguine about the prospect of facing some sort of sanction, saying: “If there will be it is my fault.”