Daniil Medvedev has spoken out following a frosty spat with Holger Rune during their Indian Wells match. The world No. 4 wasn’t happy when Rune hit a ball at him during a rally. After winning the match, Medvedev asked the Dane to speak with him in the locker room because he hadn’t apologised.
Medvedev was left fuming when he thought that Rune failed to apologise for hitting him in the middle of their Indian Wells quarter-final on Thursday. The second set started on a tense note when Rune drew Medvedev towards the net with a dropshot, which was successfully chased down.
The world No. 7 then returned the ball straight into Medvedev’s body. The Russian somehow managed to get his racket on it but Rune put away a winner to take the point as Medvedev was left standing at the net, waiting for an apology. The third seed then gestured his fingers towards his eyes and back towards Rune, while the 20-year-old just smiled and shrugged it off.
Medvedev eventually got the job done 7-5 6-4 and confronted Rune at the net. “If you want we can talk about this in the locker room, I didn’t hear you say sorry,” the Russian said. Rune replied: “There is no reason to talk about it.” Medvedev has now addressed the incident, admitting that he was the one who missed the apology.
Asked if he had a chance to speak to the Dane after what appeared to be a misunderstanding, Medvedev replied: “100 per cent, yeah. The thing is that we’re living in such a world now with social media, this is probably this is going to be there for like, I don’t know, 10 years.
“And the good points that we had, they were amazing, gonna be in one day no one remembers. It is what it is. What happened on the court, it’s good that it already on the court it was, like, over. I didn’t see him say sorry, so for sure I get a ball in me, which is not a problem, this can happen. Usually sorry, sorry, whatever. I didn’t see it, but he did it.”
The former world No. 1 admitted to getting “crazy” before learning that Rune had apologised in the moment. “I didn’t know. I get crazy, I get mad,” he continued. “Carlos [Bernardes, the umpire] tells me he said sorry, he tells me he said sorry. I say sorry that I didn’t see you say sorry. And all is done. I don’t think there is a continuation to this story. Yeah, hopefully.”
With the spat quickly put to bed, Medvedev will now turn his attention to Tommy Paul – the man he faces in the semi-final. Indian Wells is the only hard-court Masters 1000 event that the Russian has not won and he came close 12 months ago, reaching the final before losing to Carlos Alcaraz.
