Tennis world No 3 Daniil Medvedev gives ‘stupid’ booing crowd the middle finger after losing at the Paris Open… but blames it on ‘looking at my nail’ while he sarcastically hails ‘beautiful Parisien audience’

Russia’s world No 3 Daniil Medvedev appeared to give a middle finger to the stands when leaving the court following a stormy defeat at the Paris Masters.

Once again the Parisian crowds – also criticised for their frequent booing during the French Open earlier this year – showed they are the most hostile in tennis as they turned on Medvedev, who at one point in the second set was refusing to play on against Grigor Dimitrov.

Ultimately he was to save seven match points before losing his second round 6-3 6-7 7-6 to the popular Bulgarian.

Medvedev had stopped playing at 5-5 in the second set while he had a furious row with umpire Renaud Liechtenstein, who gave him an official time warning to encourage him to play on.

The Russian, who once gave the middle finger to the crowds at Flushing Meadows, later criticised the tournament and made a joking non-denial about repeating the same gesture while walking off.

‘I just checked my nails, like this, it’s nothing more than that. Why would I do that to this beautiful crowd in Paris Bercy?’ he asked.

He expanded on the hiatus in the match which resulted from him throwing his racket in frustration: ‘ I get booed. I didn’t see why, so I didn’t want to play. Then I was, like, okay. ‘until they (stop), I’m not going to play.’

‘But the Bercy crowd doesn’t stop booing. When I got a code (violation), I was, like, do I really want to get disqualified and finish the match on this note? No. So I went on to play.’

Many players complained about the way the crowd reacted to them at Roland Garros back in May, and the same habit seems to have carried on across the city in Bercy.

The strange aspect is that Medvedev is a long time French resident and speaks the language fluently, which normally goes down well.

The Russian sarcastically referred to the spectators as ‘this beautiful crowd in Paris’ when asked whether he deliberately gave fans the middle finger following his second round defeat

He stopped playing in the second set during a furious row with umpire Renaud Liechtenstein

‘It kind of doesn’t really have to do anything with France or not France,’ he said. ‘ I think it just depends the tournament, the way I act, the way the crowd acts. In general, I have a lot of French friends, and they don’t seem to like very much this tournament. Maybe there is a reason.

‘Not everyone likes to play here in Paris for this reason. I played in Bercy much better when there was no crowd at all in attendance (during the pandemic). 

‘There are some tournaments to which I like to come back, and here, well, I have problems with the crowd. It happens. Maybe in two years we won’t play here.’

Asked if Bercy was the worst crowd in tennis he responded: ‘I don’t want to say the worst. Well, we have 60 players. 30 of them will love it; 10 players will think that it’s not relevant.’