Medvedev defaults in Beijing after a flicked ball hits a front-row spectator in the eye

Daniil Medvedev was defaulted from the China Open semi-final on Monday after he hit a spectator in the face with a ball. Novak Djokovic was leading 7-5, 5-3. The point on the board was 15-15 when Djokovic hit a winner past him. The ball came off the back wall. Medvedev swiped at a backhand in annoyance and sent it into the front row behind him. The spectator doubled over, hand on his left eye, and was helped out of the arena still covering the eye.

Umpire Mohamed Lahyani and an ATP official spoke to Medvedev. He did not argue. He walked to the net and shook Djokovic's hand. The offence was treated as serious enough for an instant default. The usual ladder is three code violations and then a default on the next offence. That ladder was not used. Medvedev, 30, seeded third and ranked fifth, loses the ranking points and the prize money he had earned in Beijing.

What he said, and what Djokovic said

Medvedev told reporters he was terribly sorry to the spectator first of all. He said he was trying to get in touch if the man wanted contact, and that he hoped to apologise in person and see how he felt. He did not claim the contact was an accident of a normal swing. The ball he hit was one that had already died on the back wall.

Djokovic said he was shocked and hoped the spectator was not badly injured. He also said he felt sorry for Medvedev because he knew the feeling. Djokovic was defaulted from the 2020 US Open after hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball. The parallel is the sanction, not the shot. In New York the ball was struck toward an official in anger during a match. In Beijing the ball was a rebounding dead ball, swiped into a front-row seat. Both ended a match by default and both cost the player the tournament's points and money.

The other semi-final

The draw had already lost one semi-finalist. Hubert Hurkacz retired against Alex de Minaur with the Australian leading 6-4, 3-2. Djokovic, through on a default, meets the winner of that unfinished match, which is de Minaur unless the tournament rules say otherwise after a retirement. The final is the commercial product of the week. One place in it was decided by a retirement. The other was decided by a default for striking a spectator.

A default also changes the points table in a way a retirement does not always match. Hurkacz keeps whatever the rules award a retiring player. Medvedev keeps nothing from Beijing. The ranking points that would have come with a semi-final, and the prize money attached to them, come off his sheet. At 30, and ranked fifth, those points sit inside the 52-week window that decides seedings for the Australian Open. A zero from a tournament he was two games from winning a set in is a larger hit than an early-round loss.

The sanction ladder that was skipped

Medvedev has been defaulted and fined before for conduct toward officials and equipment. Monday's case is different in the person who was hit. A code violation for a smashed racket stays on the player. A ball in a spectator's eye brings the tournament doctor, a possible claim, and an ATP default that does not require a previous warning. Lahyani did not have to climb the warning ladder because the rule book treats contact with a spectator as conduct that can end the match at once.

The China Open has not published a medical update on the spectator. Medvedev's own next step, on his account, is an apology if the man will take it. The ranking sheet will not wait for that conversation. The points from Beijing are already gone. Djokovic, who has been on the other side of a default, is in the final because a dead ball left the court and hit a man in the front row.