Daniil Medvedev played down his angry comments to officials during his second-round defeat at Wimbledon, saying he was just frustrated.
The 21-year-old Russian accused the umpire of bias during the match, and then threw coins under the umpire's chair upon dropping a five-setter to Ruben Bemelmans.
"I don't know why I did it. As I said, like, in the heat of the moment, I was frustrated," he said. "Maybe there were some bad calls. It can happen in sports. I was just disappointed and made a stupid thing."
Medvedev, who was given a point penalty during the match, called the supervisor and appeared to ask for umpire Mariana Alves to be changed, alleging that she did not want him to win.
When asked if he had been saying the umpire was biased, Medvedev said, "No, not at all," and apologized.
"I don't actually remember what I said. It was a long match. Was very hot," he said.
But he did say he still perceived most of the calls to have gone against him.
"Like there are referees, and they can make some mistakes," he said. "But me as a tennis player, I do some mistakes, too. One of them was, for example, after the match."
The world No. 49 defeated fifth-seeded Stan Wawrinka in the first round.
