Image: AL BELLO (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA)
The 27-year-old Russian is essentially cool about it. However, he avoids his Instagram account for a few days after defeats.
The 2021 US Open Champion is not sure how to protect players, but also fans, from public hate tirades, usually triggered by bet losers. “That’s a very difficult question, I don’t really have an answer,” Medvedev admitted when asked by the APA. The negativity starts with future tournaments. “If you lose a match, you get ‘destroyed,'” he said with a laugh. “The higher you climb, the more they attack you.”
Even Djokovic is not immune to it
Even a superstar like Novak Djokovic is not immune to this, said the father of the family. He once observed Djokovic in the players’ area as he saw his Instagram after a defeat. “On the rare occasion that he loses a match, people write things like ‘you should never play tennis again’.” For Medvedev, this unjustified criticism, which often goes below the belt or even against family members, is part of it. “It’s part of life, betting is part of the sports business and without it there would probably be less money in sports.”
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However, you should be able to take action against insults or threats against the family. “Personally, I’ve gotten used to it. Sometimes some comments can still affect me, but if I lose, I know my Instagram is full of this shit. Then I try not to read anything for a day or two.” So he tries to regulate it himself.
“Hopefully I never have to regret it”
He has not yet realized that even underage fans can sometimes see serious insults in his photos because they have not been deleted. But he doesn’t see it as his responsibility. “Neither me nor my team can be online for 24 hours. To be honest, at the moment I think that’s just how social media is. I sometimes read Twitter and you can see how they also react to people like Elon Musk, Leonardo di Caprio or even presidents go off.”
And yet he likes these platforms too. “It also did a lot of good to unite people too.” And so he and his wife have already published pictures of their daughter, while other celebrities have their faces unrecognizable. “We never really thought about it because we hope we live in a safe environment. When someone complains, there are hundreds of comments about how beautiful she is. You can take it that way. Hopefully I never have to regret it.”
How he thinks about Thiem’s crisis
He will certainly never regret choosing tennis as a sport, even if he doesn’t describe himself as an “obsessive”. So on Friday evening after reaching the semi-finals, he got a different kind of relaxation with a “Fantasy Premier League” video game. He couldn’t just talk about tennis 24/7. “But I love the feeling of winning and I hate losing. So maybe I’m obsessed in a way. If you’re not, you can’t be great.”
He was also asked how he thinks about Dominic Thiem’s crisis. “He still has the shots. He plays well and only lost twice against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the decisive tiebreak.” Medvedev believes that Austria’s former US Open winner can come back again. “He knows how to do it, he’s a Grand Slam winner, a Masters 1000 winner. For me, until he says he’s retiring, he has the potential to win any tournament.”
He fondly remembers various duels with Thiem, especially the final he narrowly won at the 2020 ATP Finals. “It was brutal playing against him. The final was perhaps one of the best matches I’ve ever played .”
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Source: Nachrichten
