"Do not deliberately attract the audience": Daniil Medvedev makes himself unpopular in Madrid
Daniil Medvedev once again turned the audience against him at the Davis Cup in Madrid. Not on purpose, however, as he explained.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Dec 05, 2021, 11:20 am
"The more you whistle, the better I play."
The early Horst Skoff said this small but great sentence: It was 1987 in Monte Carlo, in the match against the crowd's favorite Yannick Noah. (Skoff won in three sets.)
Medvedev: Memories of New York
It might as well have come from Daniil Medvedev. The world number two competed with the audience twice in a row during his run in 2019 at the US Open ...
And in Madrid, too, Medvedev is well on the way to catching a loud whistle before the final match against Croatia.
After the win against Jan-Lennard Struff, he had already got a foretaste of what he fired with several gestures in the direction of the audience, including the "Calma" sign from soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. As he explained afterwards, it was a reference to the Spanish coach of his colleague Karen Khachanov, namely Jose Clavet, who always admonishes to calm down when playing cards, football or tennis. And of course it was also an homage to Ronaldo, who played in Madrid for many years.
Medvedev: "Beating Spain was the highlight"
Medvedev, however, continued to babble into misfortune. The highlight of the week was the win against Spain in Madrid, he said in an on-court interview, and he did it in so many repetitions that, according to all legal theories, at least one has to blame him for a contingent resolution as opposed to deliberate negligence.
Medvedev's speech: "It was a wonderful two weeks for us. Beating Spain was the highlight. Beating Spain in Madrid ... we were all so happy in the locker room to have beaten the home favorites. It was a really nice one Feeling and I'm very happy about it. "
Medvedev: "Don't do this on purpose"
In the press conference, Medvedev, of course, mimed the innocent lamb. The "Calma" gesture? A joke, "but maybe the wrong decision, that happens. But I had to go through with it and stand by it. Because I like to stand by what I do." In general, however, his appeal to the audience is "a game that I don't play on purpose," he assured. What he does on the pitch comes out of emotions. "I'm calmer in (private) life."
Medvedev stepped up again. "I say it with 100 percent honesty: I don't deliberately irritate the audience. If I do something that triggers it, it's not to make it angry or sad or to turn it against me. It's just something that I do feel in the moment. "