Daniil Medvedev explodes over 'awful' farce in all-time rant at Indian Wells

Daniil Medvedev has unleashed an all-time rant at Indian Wells during his match against Alexander Zverev, bemoaning the 'awful' state of the court. Medvedev saved a match point to beat Zverev 7-6 (5) 6-7 (5) 7-5 to advance to the quarter-finals at the ATP 1000 event.

But the talk of the tennis world after the match was Medvedev's extraordinary rant in which he complained about how slow the court was and described it as a 'disgrace'. During a change of ends in the first set, Medvedev said: "It is a freaking disgrace to consider this awful court a hard court.

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"It's a disgrace to the sport, this court. Should be banned from playing here. A freaking disgrace to the sport, this freaking court. And they call it a hard court. What a shame to call this awful court a hard court. I'll go to the toilet but I don't care if you give me a time violation.

"I'm going to be as slow as this court again. I don't care. Give me five time violations. If they allow us to play on such a court I can allow myself to do whatever I want."

Medvedev took a nasty tumble late in the match, but managed to keep playing after receiving treatment on his ankle. In more bizarre scenes, Medvedev appeared to ask Zverev not to touch him after the German player had offered his assistance while Medvedev was laying on the court in pain.

"When I rolled my ankle I rolled it pretty hard," Medvedev said afterwards. "The moment I rolled it I was like 'OK, I'm going to just stand up and it's going to be fine.' And then I was staying on the ground because the pain was only growing and usually that's not a good sign so I thought I'd better stop."

The win marks Medvedev's 17th in a row and the first time in his career that he's made the quarters at Indian Wells. The World No.6 is coming off three-straight titles at Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai.

It was the second time in as many matches that Medvedev had expressed his frustrations over the conditions in the Californian desert. “Not easy to play here, for everyone," the Russian said after his third-round victory over Ilya Ivashka.

"I feel like there are, let’s say, 10 players that have the quality, I will not say which one, but to play good here because they have something in their game that can help them. Other than that, everyone is struggling.

"You can see a lot of matches [are] 6-1 in one of the sets. And you look at it on TV and you’re like, the other one is not playing bad, just few moments."

Coco Gauff and Maria Sakkari reach Indian Wells quarters

Earlier on Tuesday, Coco Gauff rallied from a break down in the final set to beat Rebecca Peterson 6-3 1-6 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals at Indian Wells for the first time. After suffering an early break in the decider, the American stepped up her defence, fending off three break points at 4-4 and breaking Peterson for a fourth time on match point to book her spot in the last eight.

"Today, it was just a mental thing, staying in the match," Gauff said. "I wasn't playing my best in some moments and wasn't serving as well as I'd like to, but I think my mentality kept me in today."

Elsewhere, seventh seed Maria Sakkari outlasted big-serving Czech player Karolina Pliskova 6-4 5-7 6-3 in a two-hour and 45-minute marathon. The Greek star has kept alive her hopes of capturing a first Indian Wells crown after making the final last year.

with agencies

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