Medvedev Explains Controversial Decision To Show Parisian Crowd Middle Finger
ATPThursday, 02 November 2023 at 07:30
Updated at Monday, 11 August 2025 at 10:53
Daniil Medvedev had a few heated moments with the crowd at the 2023 Paris Masters, and he ended his tournament by showing the crowd a middle finger.
The Russian has clashed with crowds multiple times before, most notably at the US Open, where he eventually almost cruised towards a win. His latest incident came at the last ATP Masters 1000 event of the year.
Medvedev was playing against an inspired Grigor Dimitrov, ultimately losing the match in three close sets. However, during the match, there were some moments that the Russian was not happy about, and that's why he showed the crowd a middle finger.
He made sure to do it in a really funny way, and when explaining it after the match, Medvedev joked that he certainly wasn't showing the crowd a middle finger, sarcastically saying that he had no reason to do that.
"No, I didn't. I just checked my nails, like this (demonstrating). (Laughter.) No, really, it's nothing more than that. Why would I do that to this beautiful crowd in Paris-Bercy? (Smiling.)"
After that, the former world no. 1 explained his relationship with the crowd in Paris, and the specific moment that he didn't like. Medvedev is used to booing, but he doesn't like when he's not allowed to play at his own pace.
"So what happened is I throw the racquet, I get booed. Normal. I don't see a problem with that. I go to serve, they applause or something. But I want to serve. They shouldn't applause. So I still serve. The referee was talking during this so Grigor was not ready."
"Okay, that happens, but I get booed. I didn't see why, so I didn't want to play. That's actually the end of the story. Then I was, like, okay. Till they boo, I'm not going to play. But Bercy crowd doesn't stop to boo. So I was, like, okay."
It wasn't the first time that Medvedev clashed with French crowd, and therefore, he was also asked if he thinks that there's some specific reason why it happens on the French soil.
"Yeah, I think, first of all, as you say, kind of doesn't really have to do anything with France or not France. I think it just depends the tournament, the way I act, the way the crowd acts. So it's like all coming together."
"In general, I have a lot of French friends, and they don't seem to like very much this tournament. Maybe there is a reason. Me, generally, yeah, I played much better here without the crowd, so that's all I can say (smiling)."
Despite having an unpleasant experience, the 2021 US Open champion refused to call the Parisian crowd "the worst," saying that "things like that happen."
"I don't want to say the worst. Well, we have 60 players. 30 of them will love it; 10 players will think that it's not relevant, so on and so forth. So I'm not going to say anything. I don't want to say bad things about this tournament in general. It's just that it doesn't work. Every match is the same. Things like that happen."
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