Medvedev happy to advance after “crazy” moments with line-calls and umpire in Monte-Carlo

Daniil Medvedev said he was happy to have recovered his poise just in time as he advanced to the last 16 of the Monte-Carlo Masters on Wednesday despite going “crazy” over a line-call dispute.

The Russian was leading Gael Monfils by a set and was serving at 1-2, 30-0 when a shot from Monfils landed close to the baseline. Medvedev hit a forehand winner but appeared to stop the point beforehand, prompting the umpire, Mohamed Lahyani to come down and inspect the mark.

Lahyani called the ball in, much to Medvedev’s surprise and Hawk-Eye, not being used officially in Monte-Carlo but available to broadcasters, suggested it was out. The point was awarded to Medvedev and then, on the next point, another Monfils shot landed near the baseline and was called in, only to be correctly overruled by Lahyani.

At the changeover, after losing serve and going down 4-1, Medvedev lost his rag with Lahyani, swearing several times and berating the umpire for not calling the ball at the time. “It’s out, it’s out,” he yelled. “You guys are getting ridiculous, with the Hawk-Eye Live (used in most Masters 1000 events), you don’t see anything…You guys should do better.”

“I went crazy, then I calmed down”

Afterwards, Medvedev admitted he’d lost his mind for two games but said Lahyani had been totally in the wrong in a match he went on to win 6-2, 6-4.

“I still tried to find the bounce now. I cannot actually say 100 percent 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).”

“In or Out?”

Mededev wrote “In or out?” on the camera after the match but despite the incident, Medvedev said he was happy he managed to put the situation out of his mind.

“Actually, I managed to calm myself down again, saying to myself I don’t want to lose the match because of what happened now because of me getting crazy,” he said. “I want to continue playing the way I should play. I want to continue to try to win, and I managed to do it.

“So I’m pretty happy sometimes. Sometimes if you don’t control the crazy in the moment you have to control the crazy after the moment, and I didn’t control it best, but I managed to do it much better than sometimes before in my career. That’s why I managed to win the match.”

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