French Open: Daniil Medvedev Makes “Monkey” Gesture at Crowd in Bizarre Meltdown

World No. 4 Daniil Medvedev has crashed out of the Moselle Open and turned the nation of France against him after a wild meltdown.

The top seed at the event was upset 6-4, 6-7, 6-3 by Stanislas Wawrinka, who is trying to come back from injury.

Medvedev has had far from a happy season, booed throughout the Australian Open to a loss in the final, a fourth round exit at the French Open, banned from Wimbledon and a fourth-round loss to Nick Kyrgios at the US Open.

Medvedev was banned from Wimbledon because he’s Russian and the tournament had a ban on Russian and Belarusian players as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

His loss at the US Open ended his title defense and dropped him out of the World No. 1 spot.

Having been broken in his first service game of the third set, Medvedev threw his racket as the French fans booed him.

Medvedev immediately started gesturing widely, booing back at the crowd and leaving fans thinking he was making “monkey” gestures at the crowd.

“He is simmering here,” the commentator said. “He is surely going to attract the warning of the umpire … oh he really has to be careful.”

After the win however, Wawrinka didn’t throw Medvedev under the bus.

“We always have some great battles,” the 37-year-old three-time Grand Slam champ said in his on-court interview. “He is at the top of the rankings. One of the best players and nicest person outside of the court, so it is always great to play against each other.”

Now ranked 284th in the world, Wawrinka’s win was his first against a top-10 player since 2020.

“I’m very happy with the level of play that I managed,” Wawrinka said, who missed 12 months from March 2021 with a tendon injury. “It’s for moments like this that I did everything to come back.”

After the game, Medvedev said: “Stan was better than me and he won. I tried to hang on. I had opportunities but it wasn’t good enough. But respect to Stan, I didn’t think he was 37 (years old).”

Wawrinka will next face Sweden’s Mikael Ymer in his first ATP quarterfinal since January 2021.

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