Russian Medvedev doubles down after allegedly throwing middle fingers at Paris

Daniil Medvedev is determined to be the bad boy of world tennis and his latest actions in Paris should remove any doubt about it.

We're talking here about his response to a raucous crowd in the second round of the Paris Masters.

The Russian tennis player lost, unexpectedly, to Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov in three sets: 6-3, 6-7 (4) and 7/6 (2), in a match in that he never truly looked comfortable in, but things really boiled over in the second set.

With 5 all, and after losing the first set, Medvedev went to the chair umpire to complain about the boos he was receiving from the French public.

"They whistle and I'm not going to play when they whistle. They're stupid. If they don't whistle, I'll play," he complained to the chair umpire. It did little to sway the umpire, who in fact ended up signaling a warning due to the Russian's delay in serving.

Curiously, Medvedev would end up winning that set in the tiebreak but would lose the third, also in the tiebreaker.

It was after the loss that really earned his reputation as a tennis bad boy though. On his way to the locker room, the Russian made a seemingly inflammatory gesture with his hand (aka the finger) to the public, captured by many fans and shared on social networks.

Photo: Twitter - @set360

At the press conference, Medvedev was asked about the gesture and the Russian didn't see what all the fuss was about.

"No, I was looking at my nails. How was I going to do that to this beautiful French audience?" the Russian tennis player replied ironically.

Medvedev probably isn't expecting anybody to believe that especially considering he has priors with this type of behaviour! At the 2019 US Open, after beating Feliciano López, he dedicated a similar gesture to the public, also pointing out that he had won thanks to their boos.