Daniil Medvedev found himself in a bizarre but also funny situation during his Cincinnati Masters match against Jiri Lehecka as the Russian used some foul language in French but forgot that chair umpire Aurelie Tourte was also from France and could perfectly understand him.
After a first-round bye, No. 4 seed Medvedev started his Cincinnati run on Thursday and it didn’t start well after he lost a tight opener in a tie-break to 35th-ranked Lehecka.
In the second set, things weren’t getting any better for 2019 Cincinnati champion Medvedev and he started ranting to himself during a changeover. But Tourte overheard everything and slapped the 28-year-old Russian with a code violation.
“Why are you giving me a code violation? I’m talking to myself. What’s the problem? In the other match, when I was talking to myself, you didn’t do anything. I’m speaking to myself.. what’s the problem?” Medvedev asked Tourte.
Responding to Medvedev, the French official simply explained that she heard what words he used and that she had no choice but to react.
Medvedev went on to lose to Lehecka
After the incident, Medvedev ended up crashing out of Cincinnati in his opening clash as Lehecka completed a 7-6 (2) 6-4 win.
In the first set, Medvedev had break points in three separate games but failed to realize. And Lehecka made him pay for that after opening an early 4-1 lead in the tie-break before converting his first set point.
At the start of the second set, Medvedev missed out on another two break points in the fourth game before Lehecka finally got the first break of the match in the seventh game.
Up by a set and a break, Lehecka had three match points on Medvedev’s serve in the ninth game but didn’t convert. However, the Czech remained unfazed and realized his fifth match point on his serve in the following game.
For Medvedev, this was another disappointing loss this summer on hard courts as he previously got stunned by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in his Montreal Masters opener last week.
It has been a lackluster North American hard-court swing for Medvedev so far and it will be interesting to see how he will look at the US Open after not doing well in the lead-up tournaments.
