Daniil Medvedev experienced a tense moment during his 2024 Wimbledon Championships semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz, which required the supervisor to come to the court.
The Russian was serving for the first set against last year’s champion when they played a point that Medvedev thought was unfairly judged by the umpire, Eva Asderaki. According to the umpire, the ball bounced twice, which the 28-year-old disagreed with.
After the point was given to his opponent, the former World No. 1 shouted something towards the umpire, which resulted in a code violation, but only after she consulted the situation with the supervisor.
The fact that the supervisor was called suggested that the words were likely very harsh. It implied something more serious, which might have resulted in a default.
Luckily for Medvedev, it resulted only in a code violation, and he was asked about the situation after the match, saying that the words he said were said in Russian.
“I don’t know if it was a double bounce or not. I thought no. But it was tricky. The thing is once long ago at Roland Garros against Cilic, I lost. And she didn’t see that it was 1 bounce. So I had this in my mind and I thought again… against me. I said something in Russian… It wasn’t over the line. So, I got a code for it.”
He maintained that he said something in Russian and that it wasn’t very bad, which is interesting because the umpire certainly didn’t let it slide like that. She called the supervisor to consult the situation, but in the end, as it was only a code violation, it likely wasn’t serious enough, and Medvedev was never afraid of being disqualified.
“Not at all because I didn’t say anything too bad. The thing is I think it would be so much easier with the challenge system. Because the challenge system shows the bounce. If there was a bounce it would show it.”
“And then if we use it, we would never have this situation. I don’t know why we don’t use the challenge system for the double bounce.”
