Australian tennis icon Jelena Dokic said she had “never seen anything like it”, branding comments from Daniil Medvedev as “insulting” after the former World No.1 erupted in a chaotic moment during his four-set defeat to Benjamin Bonzi
Medvedev looked on the brink of crashing out in straight sets during the first round of the Open, with Bonzi up two sets at Louis Armstrong Stadium and with match point in the third.
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But in a stunning turn of events, he was given another opportunity to serve after a cameraman mistakenly walked onto the court, much to the displeasure of a furious Medvedev.
The Russian argued with the umpire Greg Allensworth, asking him: “Are you a grown man or not?”
“Do you want to go home? You want to go home don’t you?” the former World No.1 continued.
“He doesn’t want to be here, he gets paid by the match not by the hour,” Medvedev yelled at the camera before adding: “Reilly Opelka was right!”.
For context, the American previously said in February of Allensworth that he “shouldn’t have a job or should be sidelined for about four weeks, maybe learn a thing or two” after he was penalised for swearing at a spectactor at the Dallas Open.
Play was paused for over seven minutes as the crowd jeered, with Bonzi refusing to serve until they were quiet.
Eventually when play got back underway he faulted on first serve and then made an unforced error before Medvedev hit a winner to take the game.
The Russian went on to take the third set in a tiebreak and then shut out Bonzi 6-0 to win the fourth, only for the Frenchman to miraculously recover and claim the fifth set 6-4.
Dokic agreed with the decision by the umpire and said Medvedev should have been served a code violation for his “insulting” accusations towards Allensworth.
“The umpire had to make a decision to actually give Bonzi a first serve, which to me was the right decision,” she said.
“But Medvedev, of course, extremely unhappy with that and this is what happened from there. He got into a massive altercation with the umpire.
“There should have been a code violation. This is just for me… it’s insulting. He should have got some kind of a code violation, but also for inciting the crowd as well, for having this big break something.”
Dokic said she had “never seen” such a lengthy break because of the crowd, adding it was a “massive momentum shift” in favour of Medvedev.
“This could really now even get us to five sets, especially if Medvedev wins this set, it definitely changed it,” she added.
“I really feel for Bonzi. He wasn’t sure whether he should continue to actually not play, whether to go on and serve, but it was really difficult to actually start serving.
“Sometimes you can serve through a little bit of crowd (noise), not through that. He actually said to the umpire, ‘Look, I can’t actually serve and play through that’.”
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