Daniil Medvedev insists he is ready to have a locker room showdown with rival Alexander Zverev over claims he doesn't take 'fair play and sportsmanship very serious'.
In an astonishing press conference following a straight sets defeat to Holger Rune at the Monte-Carlo Masters, the Russian told journalists he was prepared to have it out with Zverev if the German continued to say he was "one of the most unfair" players on the ATP Tour. The dispute comes after Medvedev won over Zverev on Thursday in an eventful last-16 match.
Coming from a set down, Medvedev appeared to irk his opponent when he made a dash for the toilet with the score at 4-3 in the deciding set. But the World No.5 rejected Zverev's claims it was a tactical move to put the German off his game, citing the fact that Zverev went on to have two match points before he claimed the win. He said:
"Toilet, well, I wanted to pee. What does he want me to do? And, let's take it step by step. So, 2-All - no, 3-2. I have like five break points or whatever. He manages to hold. Congrats. Then, I make the game 40-Love for me. I go to the toilet, I lose the next two games, he's serving for the match, and he's saying I'm going to the toilet to make him play worse. Sascha is living in how own world."
The recent Miami Open winner continued, comparing the former world No. 2 to other players - including Diego Schwartzman, who he previously had an altercation with.
"Yeah, Sascha, when he loses, we can find maybe 25 interviews of him where he does say some strange things. Again, honestly saying like if guys like Casper, I don't know, Andrey, maybe Karen, even Diego, so I had let's call it a fight with him in ATP Cup, honestly, I'm at fault, and probably he still like doesn't like me the way maybe he liked me before this match."
"And I'm sorry that a guy like Diego, who's so kind and so fair play, feels like this about me. Sascha is not this guy. Sascha is not like Casper, he's not like Diego, he's not like Andrey. When he says someone is not fair play, you're like, 'Okay, great. Look at yourself in the mirror."
And despite concluding that Zverev may have made the poor sportsmanship taunts in the heat of the moment, Medvedev revealed he will seek out the German if he genuinely believes he is an unfair player. He added:
"In the heat of the moment. If he says the same in one week, different story. If he changes his mind, different story. I can understand. After the match, heat of the moment, he lost a tough one. He was serving.
"So, yeah, it doesn't disappoint me at all, but again, if in one week he's going to continue saying, well, I'm going to going to come to him in the locker room and say, Let's discuss what's wrong. Tell me, I'm gonna tell you, and maybe we never gonna speak again and we are gonna be enemies or whatever. But at this moment I don't care much."
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