A ball struck by Daniil Medvedev during his China Open semifinal on Monday found its way into the crowd and made contact with a spectator's face, resulting in his disqualification and Novak Djokovic's passage through to the final without completing the match.

With Djokovic holding a 7-5, 5-3 advantage and needing just three more points to close out the match, Medvedev struck a ball into the crowd beyond the baseline. A spectator seated in the front row was escorted from the venue with one hand covering his eye. Within minutes, Medvedev was taken off the court, accepting the chair umpire's ruling without protest.

Speaking to reporters in the mixed zone after the match, Medvedev described the ball-striking incident as entirely unintentional and noted that he was working to reach the spectator directly, expressing a wish to offer a personal apology and check on the person's wellbeing, while also pointing out that nothing in his actions at the time reflected an attempt to play the ball in anger.

Ball-handling has long been one of the more dependable parts of the game, even when other aspects of performance have left room for improvement. With the ball bouncing unpredictably, the aim shifted to keeping it in play rather than letting it land out of bounds.

In tennis, a player is removed from a match or tournament through a process called a default, which is triggered by conduct that breaks the tour's rules — whether those actions take place on or off the court. Behaviours that draw penalties during play range from poor sportsmanship and rude gestures to foul language and mishandling equipment such as balls or racquets.

Under the rules of the match, three violations accumulate into an automatic default, though the chair umpire holds the authority to end a player's participation immediately after just one infraction — the pathway that applied in Medvedev's case.

According to the ATP Rulebook, competitors are prohibited from striking, kicking, or propelling a tennis ball in a forceful, reckless, or anger-driven manner anywhere within the tournament venue, with an exception carved out for actions taken in the ordinary course of playing a point, warm-up included. Under tennis rules, intentionally or carelessly sending a ball beyond the court's limits — or hitting one into play without regard for where it travels — constitutes ball abuse, a category of misconduct that seldom results in a player being removed from a match on the basis of a single incident alone; yet that outcome did befall Djokovic at the 2020 US Open, when a ball he struck in frustration connected with the throat of a line judge. Djokovic held the top position in the men's rankings at the time he was removed from the draw.

ATP regulations dictate that the contest played on Monday will be logged as a defeat against Medvedev's official record, with all prize money and ranking points accumulated throughout his China Open semifinal run stripped away.

Djokovic's tally at the China Open stretched to 33 consecutive victories without a defeat after Medvedev withdrew from their match. Holding the 11th position in men's singles, Djokovic is scheduled to meet ninth-ranked Alex de Minaur in Tuesday's final on Oct. 6.

During his second-round defeat to Matteo Berrettini at April's Monte Carlo Masters, Medvedev hurled his racquet to the ground, drawing a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct while stopping short of ejection.