Daniil Medvedev is one of the players that isn't afraid to interact with the crowd and he did it also in his latest match at the 2023 Madrid Open.
Not everything was going well for the former world no. 1 in his third-round match at the ATP 1000 event in the Spanish capital. He lost the first set and he was quite disappointed by it, so he showed his frustration by throwing a racquet and fans didn't like that.
When Medvedev noticed that he was getting booed, he showed the crowd in Madrid that he can't hear them well enough, making them even louder. Eventually, he managed to win the match in three sets and it was booing that he talked about in the press conference afterwards.
"You know, I hit the racquet a little bit after the first set. I was disappointed with some mistakes. So they started booing. I was, like, yeah, come on, let's do it more."
The Russian also talked about the latest incident on the ATP Tour, that happened in yesterday's match between Holger Rune and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, when the crowd got quite involved too.
"But then when you play a good point you also can put them on your side. I actually watched Holger yesterday without the sound, so I thought that something is happening, but I watched it without the sound. My daughter was sleeping behind the door."
But the Russian also mentioned moments when he doesn't think booing is appropriate, such as when he requests to see if the ball was in or out by using a hawk eye system, also called a challenge.
"And, yeah, again, sometimes you deserve it, sometimes not. Probably, you know, I hit the racquet a little bit, so maybe I deserve it. One time I took a challenge, they started booing. What, you don't want me to take a challenge?"
Medvedev then went on to say that sometimes it seems that people come to matches these days just to see some drama and boo when they get a chance to do so.
"I feel like also sometimes the crowd right now in tennis, for whatever reason, I don't know, maybe it was like this before also, comes for this excitement. So as soon as something is happening, they don't even know what's happening, they just boo you. Yeah, I experienced this quite a bit. Novak experienced it. I mean, a lot of players."