Watch: Jack Draper loses to Daniil Medvedev after controversial umpire call

Jack Draper’s defence of his Indian Wells title ended in controversial circumstances on Thursday as he suffered a debatable penalty for hindrance.

After a slow start, Draper was trying to battle his way back into his quarter-final match against Daniil Medvedev at the time of the incident, which came at 5-5 in the second set.

On the fourth shot of a rally, Medvedev hit a forehand which arced towards the baseline, and Draper clearly thought it had flown long because he held his arms up in confusion.

The rally continued, until Medvedev missed a backhand on the 12th shot, but he then called for a video review on grounds of hindrance. After looking back at the replay, chair umpire Aurelie Tourte told the crowd that “Mr Draper made a gesture with his hands which was different from a normal point” and awarded the rally to Medvedev.

The fans were unimpressed, booing the decision, and Draper himself made a calm but heartfelt appeal to Tourte on the grounds that: “There’s no way it distracted him enough. In the rulebook, if he misses the next ball, then I understand. But we played two more shots.”

“I think you’ve got that wrong.”

A hindrance was called against Jack Draper after Daniil Medvedev claimed he waved his arms mid-point 😲 pic.twitter.com/x75ZIXL9Id

— Sky Sports Tennis (@SkySportsTennis) March 13, 2026

Tourte stuck with her ruling and 0-15 on Draper’s serve became 0-30, whereupon Medvedev claimed the only break of the set and served out for a 6-1, 7-5 victory.

As the players shook hands at the net, Medvedev told Draper: “If you’re mad with me I’m sorry.” Draper replied “It was a fair call. I don’t think it distracted you enough.” But the interaction between the two men remained respectful and after the match Draper stressed that it had not been the reason for his defeat.

“First of all, Daniil was the stronger player fair and square,” Draper told BBC Sport. “It’s a difficult situation for the ref. I don’t think I did enough to hinder him, but at the end of the day I did make a slight thing with my hands.

“I think he’s played the rules quite well. The rally carried on and I was able to win the point so I don’t think I should have lost the point. I think it’s pretty harsh.”

“It’s a fair call, I just don’t think it distracted you enough.”

Jack Draper to Daniil Medvedev after the match following the hindrance call during their Indian Wells clash 🎾 pic.twitter.com/vPwKU7iHaF

— Sky Sports Tennis (@SkySportsTennis) March 13, 2026

In his post-match press conference, Medvedev explained that he had been affected by Draper’s gesture. “I think I should have done it [stopped play] the moment it happened,” he said. “I should not have waited until the end of the point… But if you look at my first forehand, I do, after this happens, I could have gone for more. I was kind of tiny bit distracted.”

As a result of his quarter-final exit, Draper loses 800 of the 1000 rankings points that he earned for winning Indian Wells last year, and thus drops back 12 places in the rankings to No 26. He is now the British No 2, two places behind Cameron Norrie, who also went out of the tournament on Thursday via a straight-sets loss to world No 1 Carlos Alcaraz.

Yet Draper – who admitted to feeling tired after his two-and-a-half-hour win over Novak Djokovic on Wednesday evening – was far from downhearted in his post-match assessment.

“If someone was to say that I was going to be here in the quarter-finals after what I’ve been through the last nine months – only myself, and my family and my team know how much it affected me – that was enough for me,” said Draper, who is wearing a sleeve on his left elbow as he attempts to minimise stress on the joint. A bone bruise in that area was responsible for keeping him off the tour throughout the second half of 2025.

“Today I ran out of steam [after the Djokovic match] and I wasn’t able to compete again a day later with one of the best players in the world, and that’s just totally normal.”

Draper will now have a week to recover from his exertions before playing Miami: a tournament where even a single victory would bring him a boost on the rankings ladder, because he fell at the first hurdle last year in the wake of his Indian Wells triumph.

Norrie, meanwhile, has climbed to No 24 in the world – his highest position for more than two years – after a strong campaign in the Californian desert that saw him eliminate sixth seed Alex De Minaur in straight sets. Against Alcaraz – a player he had beaten three times in their previous five meetings – he put up a typically dogged display but was ultimately outclassed.

The Indian Wells semi-finals will thus find the most bankable young stars of the men’s tour playing two members of tennis’s lost generation: the group born in the 1990s who were initially stymied by the so-called “big three” and have now run into the “new two”.

Alcaraz will face Medvedev, who is rediscovering some form after a feeble 2025 season, while Jannik Sinner plays Alexander Zverev.