Medvedev is defaulted in Beijing after a ball strikes a front-row spectator

Daniil Medvedev was defaulted from the China Open semi-final on Monday after a ball he struck off the back wall hit a spectator in the left eye. Novak Djokovic was leading 7-5, 5-3 at the National Tennis Center in Beijing when the chair umpire ended the match. Medvedev did not argue the call. The default strips him of the ranking points and the prize money he had earned in the tournament.

The Russian, 30, is the world number five and the sixth seed. He had already lost the point when the ball came back off the wall behind him. He swung at it, he said, to keep it inside the court. The spectator was in the first row, directly behind Medvedev. Staff walked the man out of the stand with a hand over the left eye. Reuters described him as appearing to be in pain. The tournament did not publish his name or a medical update on Monday night.

Medvedev told reporters he was trying to reach the spectator if the man wanted contact. "Terribly sorry to the spectator, first of all," he said. He called the strike an accident and said he had never been close to a situation like it. "The ball was bouncing back, so I tried to, like, just hit it anywhere, so it doesn't go out from the court. When I saw the result, I mean, I felt horrible." The rules give the umpire a default for a ball struck dangerously into the stands, whether or not the player meant to aim at anyone. Intent is not the test. Contact with a spectator is.

Djokovic, 39 and the sixth seed, said he hoped the spectator was not badly hurt. He also said he knew the feeling of a default in a big match. "It was a gruelling battle. It always is a big battle with Daniil and it's so hard to play him." The Serb had beaten Alexander Zverev, the French Open and US Open champion, in the quarter-finals. The walkover moves him into a final against Alex de Minaur and extends a Beijing record that is now the oddest number in men's tennis this week: 33 wins and no losses at the China Open.

That 33-0 run breaks the Open Era mark for the best start at a single men's tournament. Rafael Nadal had held it with 31 wins at Roland Garros before a first loss there. Djokovic won Beijing every time he played it from 2009 to 2015, six titles, then stayed away for a decade. He is back this year. After the default he said there was something about Beijing that kept him going. A finalist who has never lost a match at the event still has to win one more. De Minaur is the opponent, and he did not have to finish his own semi-final.

Hubert Hurkacz retired from the other semi-final with an adductor injury while de Minaur led 6-4, 3-2. Both last-four matches in Beijing therefore ended before a third set. De Minaur, the Australian, reaches the final without having to close out Hurkacz. The China Open men's draw has handed Djokovic a walkover and de Minaur a retirement on the same afternoon. That shapes the final more than the seeding does. Djokovic arrives with a set and three games already banked against Medvedev and no physical cost from a third set. De Minaur arrives with less than a set and a half of work against Hurkacz, and with the Pole's injury ending the match before it became long.

The default also changes the ranking arithmetic. Medvedev leaves Beijing with nothing from the event, not a quarter-final haul and not a semi-final haul. A world number five who reaches the last four of a Masters-level hard-court event normally banks a large block of points. A default wipes that block. Djokovic, already the player with the deepest record in this city, adds another final and a chance at a seventh China Open title. The ATP has not posted a revised points table for the event on Monday night. The practical effect is simpler than the table: Medvedev's week in Beijing counts as a loss with no points attached, and the spectator's injury is the reason the scoreline stopped at 7-5, 5-3.

Tournament defaults for a ball into the crowd are rare at this stage of a draw, which is why the Beijing finish will travel further than a routine retirement. The last high-profile men's default of this kind that Djokovic himself invoked was his own, and he used that memory to separate the player from the result. The chair umpire did not need a motive. The ball left Medvedev's racket after the point was over, hit a front-row spectator in the eye, and the match ended. Medvedev said he wanted to apologise in person. Whether that meeting happens is now outside the draw.

The final is Djokovic against de Minaur. One man has 33 wins and no losses in Beijing and a fresh walkover. The other has a retirement and a first China Open final. The spectator who left the Diamond Court holding his left eye is the fact the result does not record.