Daniil Medvedev has become the latest player to weigh in on the shot clock in Indian Wells. Players are given 25 seconds to be ready for the next point. This countdown used to be started manually by umpires, but in recent years it has begun automatically three seconds after the last point.

Not everyone is a fan. World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz has repeatedly hit out mid-match when feeling rushed in between points, and the Spaniard recently said it would be a “waste of [his] time” to raise the matter with the ATP. Meanwhile, Taylor Fritz admitted he didn’t have “much of an issue” with the shot clock.

And former world No. 1 Medvedev has now had his say, admitting it was a “very tough question” to answer. After reaching the quarter-finals in Indian Wells, the Russian was asked how he found the shot clock, and replied: “It’s a very tough question, because the shot clock is so, sorry, how you say it, not personal, but subjective. Because I do think… It’s very tough.”

Some players believe officials should use discretion when entering the points and subsequently starting the shot clock, and Medvedev agrees that there should be some leeway after a long rally. However, he also thinks players can take advantage.

He continued: “I do think there should be some consideration from the referee, meaning even me who goes super fast on my serve, if you play a 40-shot rally and maybe you finish in the corner, today happened a couple of times, I go to serve and I feel like I didn’t even ask for the towel, I was just trying to get some breath, and I look, it’s like five seconds. And I am, like, ‘What happened there?’ So it is fast now. But some players do, how you say, abuse it by, like, it’s two seconds, and they go, like, ‘Oh, my toss went away’, or something.

“It’s so subjective. I think the way it is here is a bit too fast, and if I’m saying this, then probably it is because I go fast on my serve. But in general, yeah, because when they do it like here automatic, I feel like it’s a tiny bit too fast, but when they make this rule where the guy can go to the towel and they only start it at the towel, some guys stand there, like, 20 seconds to go to the towel. It’s very subjective and whatever it is, I just try to adapt and try to play with it.”

Although the shot clock now starts automatically, the world No. 11 claimed that some umpires did things differently, singling out Irish official Fergus Murphy. “Yeah, I think so. I think Fergus gave me two or three times in my life a time violation and I always went nuts,” Medvedev said.

“Because sometimes you play Rafa [Nadal], you play, I don’t know, Sascha [Zverev] takes, Novak [Djokovic] takes some time to prepare for serve. And of course, you play them sometimes with a different umpire. But I would love to see Fergus – I cannot play Rafa anymore, but if he would make, like, 10 times time violation to Rafa, because you need to have some common sense sometimes, which maybe you should.”

Medvedev would also like players to be given a heads up if they start running down the shot clock, rather than receiving a time violation immediately. “I think also what would work great is to advertise a player, meaning, you know, not give only me, everyone, you first advertise, meaning on the changeover, you say, ‘Look, there was one or two times you were getting really close, next time it’s going to be a time violation’,” he added.

“And not like Fergus gave me, I remember this in Vienna, I went absolutely nuts and lost the match because of it, on the tiebreak, where I played like crazy two points with [Corentin] Moutet, I didn’t even go for the towel, something, and he gave me time violation. And this I don’t accept still. Yeah, I think there is a difference.”

EXPRESS SPORT ON FB! Get all the best sports news and much more on our Facebook page