After claiming his third title of the 2026 season in Hangzhou just last week, things ended rather surprisingly for the veteran Daniil Medvedev at the China Open semifinal. During the second set of the match at Diamond Court against Novak Djokovic, the 2021 Grand Slam winner was defaulted after he swiped his racket at a rebounding ball, injuring a fan in the process.

“Not the ending we expected 😮@DjokerNole advances to the Beijing final after Medvedev is defaulted whilst down 5-7 3-5 #ChinaOpen,” Tennis TV’s X post read.

Djokovic had just played his shot close to the net, flying past Medvedev, who reached out to his right. As the ball rebounded off the advertising wall close to the stands, Medvedev appeared to swipe at it in frustration. The only issue was that his swipe was in the direction of the audience, which triggered questions over his default.

The commentators at the time spoke about how the ruling at the time was in a “grey area” as Medvedev was later defaulted for the swipe.

Up until that point in the game, Djokovic had a clear edge over his veteran opponent. He’d taken the first set 7-5 and was leading the ongoing set 5-3. The game itself was being led by Medvedev 15-0, but Djokovic’s shot would have turned it 15-15.

It was a peculiar position for Medvedev to be in as he’d failed to lose a single set in the tournament. Since the round of 32, he’d won straight sets to get here, with his closest set played against Francisco Cerundolo. Medvedev won that first set during the quarterfinal, 7 (6) – 6 (4), before Djokovic won his first set in the semifinal.

That frustration was perhaps part of the reason why Medvedev was observed mocking Djokovic with bodily gestures during the second set of the game. The gestures appeared to poke fun at the 39-year-old’s age. Medvedev mimicked the labored breathing and tired movements to poke fun at his rival. Perhaps because he knew he had to win the set to stay alive.

Interestingly, the only Grand Slam that Medvedev won was against Djokovic at the 2021 US Open, where Medvedev won straight sets (all 6-4). Now, half a decade later, things were looking quite different.

The ball itself that Medvedev hit into the crowd appeared to hit a fan in the upper row directly in the left eye. This eventually resulted in the default call being made, and since then, Medvedev has issued an apology for the same.

Medvedev Issues Apology For Hitting Fan

During the game, had Medvedev lost the next two points, Djokovic would have advanced to the final, where the No. 5 seed would play against the No. 6 seed, Alex de Minaur.

Eventually, that is exactly what happened, but only a couple of points earlier, as any comeback hopes came to a standstill the moment the ball hit a fan in the crowd.

Soon later, the fan was seen leaving the court holding their palm over their eye alongside another member of the audience who they were sitting next to.

In light of this, Medvedev has issued an apology about the incident.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Medvedev’s statement read. “I’m trying to get in touch with the spectator to apologize. It was 100% an accident. I didn’t hit it out of anger. I wanted to prevent the ball from going out.”

Interestingly, this wasn’t the first time that Medvedev was ejected from a match.

The current default came at the ATP Tour level, but Medvedev has been disqualified before. His first came at the 2016 Savannah Challenger, where a heated exchange over a baseline call against Donald Young spiraled into code violations.

Medvedev was eventually thrown out of the match after making a charged comment suggesting chair umpire Sandy French favored Young.

For now, Medvedev is expected to stay in China as the Rolex Shanghai Masters is up next for the player. The default could cost him around $200,000, but it is not expected to carry an automatic suspension from this tournament.

While Medvedev was seed No. 3 for this tournament, he’ll enter the Shanghai Masters seeded No. 5, with Alexander Zverev being the top seed, followed by Carlos Alcaraz.

After just winning one title in 2025, Medvedev already has three titles to his name thus far this year, and would surely want to keep adding to that tally, letting this incident fade into the past.