Andy Roddick has called for clearer rules on disqualifications after Daniil Medvedev was defaulted from the China Open. Medvedev was trailing Novak Djokovic in his semi-final when he accidentally struck a member of the crowd with the ball. He immediately forfeited the tie and was later told he would lose ranking points and a £165,000 payday from the tournament in Beijing.
Roddick: 'The act is the act'
Roddick, a former US Open champion, considered the incident to be as cut and dried as they come. However, he suggested officials should install hard-and-fast rules on how to handle similar situations going forward.
“My phone kind of started lighting up and it’s like: Medvedev defaulted. Sure, but this is about as straightforward and not dramatic, right… he goes over, he hits it in, he was wrong,” Roddick said on his Served podcast.
“What do I say all the time? I don’t care if you break your own s***. I don’t care if you break a racket. I’m not going to clutch my pearls about it… as soon as someone else comes into it, and you hit a fan, you’re gone, right?
“I don’t like the thing where, even when Novak hit the person [in 2020], it was, ‘oh, if it would have hit them in the shoulder, it would have been fine’. I don’t know - the act is the act. If you hit someone, you’re gone. Let’s just make a clear-cut rule where it’s not like a judgment.”
Medvedev apologises
Medvedev was immediately apologetic after the incident, which he said left him feeling horrible. His opponent Djokovic also sympathised, having previously seen his 2020 US Open dreams ended when he accidentally hit a line judge with the ball.
“Terribly sorry to the spectator, first of all,” Medvedev said. “I'm trying to get in touch with him, if he wants it. Hopefully I can apologise in person and see how he feels.
“100 per cent accident. You can see that I didn't hit the ball in anger. Actually I do a lot of bad things, but usually ball abuse is not my thing.
“The ball was bouncing back, so I tried to just hit it anywhere, so it doesn't go out from the court. When I saw the result, I felt horrible because I don't think I was ever close to such a situation.
“So yeah, the most important, I hope that he's okay cause you never know with these types of situations. It was horrible feeling because, again, that's not what I usually do. I didn't want to hit...
“I mean, you can see that there is zero anger in this moment. It's not especially frustration. I don't hit it hard. Yeah, it hit him. I feel terribly sorry for him. I just hope he's okay. That's the most important.
“The rest we move on. I just really care about him right now. Hopefully I can meet him and make up for it somehow.”
