Daniil Medvedev played a very frustrating game at the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters in his match against Gael Monfils.
Seemingly, all was going fine for the Russian. He won the opening set 6-2, and with both players holding their serves in the second set, the scoreboard showed 2-1 for his opponent, as Medvedev led 30-0 on his serve.
After a longer rally, one of the balls from Monfils' racket landed close to the baseline and after the umpire, Mohamed Lahyani, went to inspect the mark on the clay, he determined it as 'in' despite the hawk-eye available to viewers at home showed it as 'out'.
The former world no. 1 was enraged by the call, but he got even more angry after the following rally, as the same thing happened again, but this time, Lahyani ruled the ball correctly 'out'.
Still, despite leading 40-15 in that game, which according to the hawk-eye replay should have already been a hold to love, Medvedev lost it and after the Frenchman held his serve, the Russian was losing 1-4 in the second set when he vented his frustration during the changeover.
"How can you apologize? I lost the f***ing game. You guys are getting ridiculous with the hawk-eye live you don't see anything. Did you see the match before how the guy didn't see the double bounce. You guys should do better. How can I lose a game when it's out. It's out! It's out!"
Earlier this year, Medvedev said he wanted to control his emotions on the tennis court better, particularly when moments like this happen, as he's had moments when he couldn't do it well in the past.
Only recently, Medvedev's good friend Andrey Rublev was disqualified for shouting into line umpire's face, and Medvedev did a similar thing in this match, even though he was shouting from a distance.
On the one hand, it's understandable that with so much in stake, players get fired up when they feel like they lost a certain point because of someone else's fault, on the other hand, their behaviour to the umpires should always be respectful.
Ultimately, Medvedev won five games in a row after the outburst to win the match 6-2, 6-4, and after the match, he even seemed to come on terms with the umpire, but he was asked about the incident after the match.
"I still tried to find the bounce now. I cannot actually say 100% it was out, because I still didn't see it myself. But what I heard from someone, I think like from ATP, that it was out. When I saw it, I saw it out like this, like quite big, and I didn't even stay there to check what Mohamed says."
"When he comes in and I see his edit, I'm like, he's literally going to say it's in when it's out. I told him, Okay, what do we do if it's in? Because I know it's out. What do we do after the match if I lose this game, which I lost, because it would be 40-Love and not 30-15."
"Then I was, like, Okay, calm down, Daniil. Let's go for next point, let's go for next games. What happens next if the ball is even more out and the line umpire doesn't say anything? The ball is very slow. He's right there. I have no idea how it's possible that he doesn't say out. I go crazy. I lose two games because I go crazy. I calm down. I win the match, so I'm happy. That's my part of the story, I guess (smiling)."
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