“No brains, empty brains. Probably their life must be very bad.”
Medvedev was booed as he entered Rod Laver Arena on Sunday and even cracked it with the ballkids on occasion, wanting them to have two balls each.
The pro-Nadal crowd then cheered an unforced error from Medvedev in the fourth, prompting the Russian to sarcastically clap on his racquet in response.
“Medvedev has engaged the and not in a good way,” Todd Woodbridge said in commentary for Channel Nine.“He doesn’t like when they cheer unforced errors, but it is their right, they paid the ticket,” Jim Courier added.
Medvdev later double-faulted as Nadal took a 2-1 lead in the fourth, prompting the Russian to again sarcastically give a thumbs up as the crowd celebrated his mistake.The Russian continued to falter as Nadal then broke him in the fourth set and as his frustrations grew, Medvedev again took aim at umpire John Blom.
“Can you take control? Please? Small please is not enough. Can you step up?” he said.
“Say it every time,” he added, referring to the need to tell the crowd to stop making noise in between serves.
“You have to say it 25 times, say it every time.”
“He is trying to manipulate umpire,” Jim Courier said in commentary.
“Trying to bait him into getting more involved with the crowd. And it has worked for him in the past. It helped him in his previous match get a coaching violation against Stefanos Tsitsipas. But he is frustrated and is venting, and he is tired and there is a lot at stake.”
Sam Groth added that while Medvedev has so often thrived in that kind of environment, this could be very different as the match drags on.
“They are all against him right now,” Groth said.“The problem is we have seen him turn these crowds around before but five minutes short of four hours, it has been is a physical and he has got the energy to fight both Rafa and this crowd.
“I think at the moment he is fighting John Blom and Rafa and himself, it is a real battle.”
Umpire Blom later warned to the crowd that he would have security remove any spectators should they continue to make noise in between serves.
Medvedev was highly critical towards certain sections of the crowd after his second-round win over Nick Kyrgios at Rod Laver Arena, taking exception to booing in between serves.
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“It’s not everybody doing it but people who are doing it probably have a low IQ,” he said, only further putting portions of the crowd off.
But like he did three years prior at the US Open, Medvedev had suddenly got the crowd on his side after his win over Botic van de Zandschulp, speaking to a score of cheers.
“It’s great. The other night I don’t feel like there was anything wrong,” he said at the time.
“I just talked about exactly one thing, which is between first and second serve, because the rest is, of course, they are going to support Nick, I’m not stupid, you know.
“I like coming to Australia, I feel like people support me in general here. I want to even say feeling in a way is like home.“So I do think it’s much more ups than downs with Australian crowd.”/-