Daniil Medvedev lost in the fourth round of the 2023 Madrid Open to fellow compatriot Aslan Karatsev.
Most of the time, the biggest stars on the ATP and WTA Tours get to play in the biggest stadiums, which are usually not big just in terms of the seats for fans, but also the court size. Former world no. 1, Daniil Medvedev is used to this but he wasn't granted it for the fourth-round match at the 2023 Madrid Open against Aslan Karatsev.
The Manolo Santana Stadium is the biggest court at La Caja Magica, but the second-seeded Russian didn't play there. Another all-Russian match was played at the Manolo Santana Stadium as the 10th-seeded Karen Khachanov beat his good friend, the fifth-seeded Andrey Rublev.
While the two Russians were already done with their Tuesday program in Madrid, their third good friend, Medvedev, had to battle it out at the Arantxa Sanchez Stadium, the second biggest court in La Caja Magica complex.
And that's something that Medvedev wasn't happy about, especially after the first set of his third H2H match against Karatsev, with both winning one of the previous two meetings. Medvedev had a one-break advantage in the first set but after he lost it, a tie-break had to be played.
Karatsev was the better player in a tie-break, and his opponent was visibly frustrated, especially after his fellow compatriot made it 4-1. The crowd started booing Medvedev as if he wasn't talking about it just recently, and he sat down and told the umpire Carlos Bernardes that he would wait until they stop.
It was another interesting moment for the umpire who enjoyed a lot of drama with the crowd at this year's event in Madrid, but he eventually persuaded Medvedev to keep on playing. He returned to the court and lost the tie-break 1-7.
Medvedev's frustration was obvious and even the supervisor had to be called onto the court. The Russian was trying to find an answer to why he has to play on the second-biggest court, when he's the second-seeded player at the tournament, calling it a disadvantage due to his play style.
While he certainly had a point that players should not be limited, it must be said that it would be probably impossible for the tournament organizers to create a schedule if demands of all of the players would need to be met.
However, the talk with the supervisor didn't help Medvedev as Karatsev continued his stellar performance also in the second set, hitting a total of 28 winners in the match while making only four unforced errors, and after an hour and 38 minutes, he won the match 7-6(1), 6-4.
Up next, the Russian who is currently ranked 121st in the world but will return to the Top 100 on Monday, will meet either the 8th-seeded Taylor Fritz from the United States or Zhizhen Zhang from China.
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