Daniil Medvedev is a unique personality who can sometimes become fiery on the court, but his actions at the ATP Finals against Taylor Fritz were odd, even by his standards.
2024 has been a challenging year for Medvedev, considering what he has achieved in the past. The ATP Finals is the 2021 US Open champion's final opportunity to win a title before the season ends. His last tournament win was at the Italian Open in May 2023.
Medvedev is a former champion at the season-ending tournament. At the ATP Finals, he was placed in a tough group with Taylor Fritz, Alex de Minaur, and Jannik Sinner, making his task even more difficult.
However, the six-time Grand Slam finalist was able to reflect on happy memories before the tournament, when he, Sinner, and Carlos Alcaraz discussed what it was like becoming the world's No. 1 player.
Medvedev achieved that in 2022 but now trails current No. 1 Sinner by many points in the rankings. The 28-year-old is No. 4 behind Sinner, Alexander Zverev, and Alcaraz.
Fritz is No. 5 but could overtake Medvedev by bettering his results at the season-ending event in Turin. He improved his chances of doing that by defeating Medvedev 6-4, 6-3 in the opening match of the tournament.
Although Fritz deserves credit for a solid performance that underscored the US Open runner-up's improvement this year, Medvedev never got close to his best level, and his antics did not help him.
The Russian was frustrated throughout much of the match, and he had some strange moments, including three consecutive double-faults that caused him to unexpectedly lose the opening set.
But that moment was not as bizarre as what happened in the second set. Medvedev got broken at 2-3, leaving his hopes of winning the match in tatters against a great server like Fritz at 4-6, 2-4 down.
Unfortunately, Medvedev could not contain his emotions at that point. The video below shows Medvedev tossing his racket high into the air, which resulted in him being given a point penalty after receiving a separate violation earlier in the match.
However, Medvedev's antics were not done there. He began throwing his racket closer to his body and not catching it deliberately so the umpire noticed as if trying to goad him into defaulting the world No. 4 from the match.
Medvedev continued to do this after every point, pretending to apologize after some of the throws. The umpire did not react to the antics and resisted the temptation to hand the former ATP Finals champion a harsher punishment.
That strange behavior was followed by Medvedev putting his racket backward when returning at 0-40 down in the game. Medvedev was very fortunate not to get penalized again for those antics.
Some of his moments on the court can be funny, but this was petulant behavior from the three-time Australian Open runner-up that hopefully will not be repeated in his next match.