“I can completely understand her feelings” Daniil Medvedev sympathises with Naomi Osaka after her heckling incident, brings up his heckling issues in Australia
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Daniil Medvedev and Naomi Osaka
World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev did not enjoy a good run at the 2022 Indian Wells Masters as he was defeated by Gael Monfils in the third round. Monfils staged a big comeback against the top seed to win the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 and advance into the 4th round while showing Medvedev the exit as the US Open champion fails to make his mark in Indian Wells as he is yet to reach the quarter-finals in the desert.
After his match against Monfils, Medvedev spoke about the Naomi Osaka heckling incident that took place a couple of days ago in the tournament during Osaka’s defeat to Veronika Kudermetova in the second round of women’s singles. With a spectator saying ‘You s**k Naomi’, the player broke down in tears and had to be comforted by the officials.
“I heard it from someone so I don’t want to go too much into it because I didn’t see actually what happened. But, yeah, it’s tough for everybody. I can feel for Naomi, I didn’t feel great in Australia, I can feel the fans that may say, ‘What the hell! They are getting millions, they should be ready for everything.’ At the same time, we are humans.
We all make mistakes, good decisions, sometimes we feel bad, sometimes we feel good. Basically, I can understand that Naomi didn’t feel that great when she heard it and I can completely understand her feelings. As I said, I really didn’t see it with my own eyes so I don’t have much to say. Life would be easier if everybody would be calm and not angry but at the same time talking about me, I get angry so I should be aware also,” said Medvedev during his press conference, having himself suffered heckling by the crowd.
Daniil Medvedev to drop in rankings next week
With an early exit in Indian Wells, Medvedev will be replaced by Novak Djokovic when the rankings are updated next Monday. While Djokovic has not played since his quarter-final exit in Dubai, his feats in the last season saw him have enough points that made sure despite his absence, he has not taken any massive dent to his rank and Medvedev had replaced him with only 150 points between them.
However, with his defeat to Monfils, Medvedev will lose the top rank that he had taken on 28th February 2022 and will lose it after just 3 weeks. He can however take it back at the 2022 Miami Masters as Djokovic will only be 55 points ahead of him and a couple of wins in Miami will see Medvedev back on top.
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