Years go by, and Madrid continues to be a unconventional square to play tennis as far as the environment is concerned. He suffered it, or caused it, it depends on how you want to look at it, Daniel Medvedev, who takes them having stiff with him public of the capital for a few years and throughout the week he has been dragging a pique with the stands that has led him to pull his characteristic gesture putting his hand to his ear on more than one occasion. And she had to deal with it too Holger Rune, the teenager called to star in a generational rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz and who, at barely 20 years old, made his debut in the capital, in the match he lost to the man from Malaga Alexander Davidovich.
Two bad boys of the circuit, one already a veteran and the other incipient, tending to look for external enemies and who in the Spanish capital find the perfect breeding ground to exploit. They were not the only ones, but they were the most commented, from a usual dynamic in the Spanish tournament since its inception in 2002. The court in Madrid is not guided by the usual canons of behavior in the world of tennis, especially when there is a local player involved. In the land of “the free,” when the crowd takes it with someone, it takes it for real and is not quickly forgotten. It is obvious that the reactions of both playerswho do not shy away from brawls and even seem to feel comfortable when the environment is hostile, They don’t help calm down either.. but also that there are moments when the tension rises above what is acceptable.
“It’s one in the morning and we all want to go to sleep; please, let the tennis players play”, the referee Carlos Bernardes scolded the public in one of the countless times that the whistles or the shouts of “viva España” annoyed Rune just as he threw the ball into the air to serve. “In 20 years I have not seen anything like it“Added the Brazilian, visibly annoyed at the typical Madrid menu, which combines a game late in the morning with an excessively ‘festive’ atmosphere.
Mess for the ‘Foxtenn’
Even some “I vote for you Txapote” could be heard from the second set, in a climate of brawl that broke out at the end of the first, when Davidovich argued for several minutes about the bounce of a ball with the refereethreatening even before the ATP supervisor not to play anymore. He ‘Foxtenn’, the criticized hawk-eye system that governs Madrid, decreed that it was bad, and the man from Malaga even asked the referee to forget about the technology and go down to see the mark of the ball, something that the judge cannot do.
In those moments Rune appeared, fed up with waiting, he went to his side of the track and he erased the mark of the ball with his foot, laughing as he looked at the stands. mess assembled. From that moment on, the nerves multiplied, and the party was impregnated with a environment more typical of Davis cup that of a normal tournament, with the player and the public constantly interacting.
“There has been a lot of talk about the bad behavior among the Spanish fans last night. On Sunday, the public did not understand what was happening”, Rune wrote on his social networks the day after the match. “You cannot revoke an electronic decision. And it took the referee and the supervisor a long time to explain it to my opponent. And they did not bother to communicate it to the stands. Next time, I’ll take a nap while they argue. But, personally, I have nothing against the Spanish. I hope to return to Madrid, ”added the Dane, sarcastic after his elimination.
Medveded and a problem that has been kicking for years
Other tennis players like mackenzie mcdonaldin his first round match against the local Bernabé Zapata, or Maria SakkariPaula Badosa’s executioner, have also suffered similar episodes when they have faced Spanish players, although not at the level of intensity experienced by the Dane, or those that have affected Medvedev, eliminated by Aslan Karatsev this Tuesday the more complaints, this time for having to play on the Arantxa Sánchez Vicario court, less wide than the central one.
The Russian thing comes from afar, which begins to become a habitual dynamic when he arrives in Madrid. It is a problem inherited from two years ago, also in the capital, although not in the Caja Mágica, but in the Madrid Arena. In 2021, in the Davis Cup, he had them stiff with the publicin an episode that has not been forgotten and that weighed on him in his third round match against his compatriot Aleksandr Shevchenko.
“I hit my racket because I was angry about my mistakes, so they started booing,” the Russian said of his third-round match against his compatriot. “At that moment it is possible that I deserved it, but later I asked for a review with the technology and they whistled again. What do they want, that I don’t do it, that I don’t claim? Maybe it happens out of emotion, but as soon as something happens, they they start beeping without even knowing what’s going on… I have experienced it and Djokovic too, like many other players”, argued the Russian, who also had words for what happened the day before with Rune.
”I watched the game without sound, because my daughter was sleeping in the next room, but You have to take into account when you deserve it and when you don’t. I don’t think Rune did anything yesterday, so it’s disappointing”, exposed a Medvedev who, yes, I had not seen the moment in which the Dane erased the mark of the ball for not having been caught by the television production.