Tennis: Daniil Medvedev loses his cool in US Open semi-final loss to Dominic Thiem

Notorious hotheaded Daniil Medvedev “broke the board” during a meltdown that handed the first set of his US Open semi-final – and ultimately the match – to rival Dominic Thiem.

Medvedev was a picture of cold fury as he ripped the strips from referee Damien Dumusois and tournament supervisor Wayne McKewen after a disastrous call from a linesman gave Thiem an early break.

Medvedev dripped sarcastically as he apologized to the referee and tournament official after he was beaten with a code violation for his outburst.

The drama unfolded with Medvedev by a second break point, losing 3-2 in the first set.

His first serve sailed clearly long, but went unnoticed by the linesman. Thiem returned serve and caught a clueless Medvedev in no-man’s-land in the middle of the court. Medvedev threw a half volley to the net, believing his serve had already been called long.

When the referee refused to overturn or allow Medvedev to challenge the linesman’s decision because he claimed the Russian star was unable to challenge before his shot crashed into the net, Medvedev was ready to lose it.

Medvedev told the referee in the heated discussion that followed that he had challenged the decision before his follow-up shot.

Thiem even told the referee that Medvedev should have been able to challenge the decision because it was obviously out of the question.

Tennis legend John McEnroe said in a comment: “I don’t understand why you don’t allow him to challenge that.

“That was a bad decision and they made it worse by not letting him challenge. And then they called him for the rape on top of that.

“He clearly wasn’t playing the ball. He was standing there because he knew his serve was out.”

Thiem took the opening set 6-2 with an angry Medvedev who failed to win another game before leaving the court to take a break at the end of the first set.

After having no luck arguing with the referee, Medvedev crossed the net to point out the mark on the court where his serve had landed beyond the service line.

It earned him a code violation and saw him storming to one side of the courthouse to take his case to McKewen.

“He gave me a code. What did I do to get a code?” Medvedev barked.

“The US Open is a joke. Oh, sorry. I think I killed someone, right? I’m so sorry I crossed the net. My sincere apologies for crossing the net. OMG.”

McKewen explained, “For crossing the net. It’s not allowed. You know it.”

Medvedev was unhappy with McKewen’s refusal to overturn the referee’s decision.

“You guys sit close to the court all the time, you don’t do anything,” he said.

“You do not do anything”.

Medvedev did not recover until Thiem already had the first set.

Medvedev immediately broke Thiem’s ​​serve early in the second set to take an early lead, but Thiem worked his way back to send the second set into a tiebreaker.

Thiem held firm in the tiebreaker to go up two sets with a 9-7 breaker win, and sealed the third set in a tiebreaker as well, to advance to a final against Alexander Zverev.

It’s only been 12 months since Medvedev had an impressive run to the final of the 2019 US Open as he became Public Enemy No. 1 at Flushing Meadows.

Medvedev was fined $ 9,000 and booed by the crowd for arguing with the chair umpire in a game last year in which he passed the middle finger to the crowd.

After winning the match, he cast an unprecedented shadow to the angry crowd for helping him win.

“First of all, what I can say is thank you all because your energy tonight gave me the victory,” he said. “If you weren’t here today, I probably would have lost the game because I was so tired, I had cramps yesterday. I want everyone to know that when they go to sleep at night, I won because of them.”

He began to show off to the crowd and before doing it again.

“Once again, all I can say, all the energy that you are giving me right now, I want you to know, it will give me energy for my next five games. The more you do this, the more I will win for you. Thank you.”

This time around, although he may not have made many friends yet, Medvedev stayed one match from the final, and Thiem and Zverev will meet on Monday morning.