Daniil Medvedev smashes racket seven times in wild Monte Carlo Masters outburst

Daniil Medvedev was hit with a code violation after smashing his racket seven times as he lost his cool at the Monte Carlo Masters. The No. 7 seed found himself in huge trouble in his opening match and was barely able to win points against Matteo Berrettini. After going 6-0 2-0 down, Medvedev finally had enough and let his frustrations out on his racket.

The Russian first hurled his racket to the back of the court. He kept going after it, picking up back up, and whacking it on the ground again. “Well, this is becoming a real headache now for Medvedev, and goodness me, the racket is thrown with real venom. And again. And again! It had been coming, everybody,” commentator Mikey Perera told viewers.

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The fans on Court Rainier III knew what was happening. By the time he’d already done three racket smashes, they started jeering him on. A low-level “oooh” came from the stands every time Medvedev approached his Tecnifibre stick, and when he smashed it, the crowd gave a “wahey”.

As Medvedev walked up to his racket after a fifth racket smash, Perera said: “Not again.” But the world No 10 slammed it into the ground again. A seventh and final smash came, and Perera added: “Still going.”

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Medvedev finally stopped, picked up the destroyed frame, and threw it in the bin. He was then handed a code violation warning. “Yeah, I think that’s unusable. Into the bin that goes,” the commentator added. “It’s amazing that’s just one warning, isn’t it!”

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But things went from bad to worse for Medvedev, who continued spraying errors across the court. The former world No. 1 was broken twice more to suffer a bruising 6-0 6-0 defeat. It’s the first double-bagel loss Medvedev has taken in his career. He finished the match with 28 unforced errors.

Commentators were stunned by the nature of the match. “A scoreline to shock and surprise,” Perera said. Co-commentator and former ATP star Gilles Muller replied: “Not sure I’ve ever seen anything like this. Just speechless here.”

Berrettini, a former world No. 6 who has dropped down to 90th after years of on-and-off injury struggles, has yet to lose a game at this year’s Monte Carlo Masters. In his first-round match on Tuesday, he advanced when Roberto Bautista Agut retired just 23 minutes into the match with the Italian leading 4-0.

The wildcard signed the camera lens with a message which read ‘Scusa Carlo’. Perera joked: “Sorry Carlo. We’ll have to find out who that Carlo is. It doesn’t say sorry Daniil!”

Medvedev admittedly isn’t a fan of clay and has joked that these are his least favourite weeks of the season. But he’s still had results on the surface – he won the Italian Open in 2023 and is a former semi-finalist in Monte Carlo – so the defeat came as a huge surprise. The world No. 10 had been in form this year, winning titles in Brisbane and Dubai, and beating Carlos Alcaraz on his way to the Indian Wells final. But he was bagelled during a surprise third-round exit in Miami last month, and has now taken two more bagels in Monaco.

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