NEW YORK, August 28. /TASS/. Former World No. 1 tennis player Daniil Medvedev has been slapped with a $42,500 fine for his behavior during the opening round of the 2025 US Open tournament in New York, US-based sports broadcaster ESPN reported on Thursday.
"The former world number one has been fined almost 31,500 British pounds ($42,500) by the United States Tennis Association. He was docked $30,000 for unsportsmanlike behavior and another $12,500 for obliterating a racket against a chair," according to ESPN.
"It means the Russian will have to forfeit about 40% of the first-round prize money he received," the broadcaster added.
In the opening round of the Grand Slam tournament in the United States last Sunday, the 13th-seeded Medvedev suffered a 6-3, 7-5, 6-7(5), 0-6, 6-4 defeat against unseeded Benjamin Bonzi from France.
In the third set of their match, with Medvedev facing match point, a photographer, thinking the match was already over, rushed onto the court to take some photos amid a Bonzi first-serve fault. The chair umpire ordered the photographer, whose license was later revoked, to leave the court, and also gave Bonzi a redo on his first serve.
The umpire’s decision outraged Medvedev, so he rushed the judge and gave him a piece of his mind, accusing the official of wanting to end the match as quickly as possible.
The Russian came back to win that set on a tie-break and took the next set as well, but eventually fell in the decisive fifth. Unable to hide his disappointment after the match, he smashed his racquet to pieces.
Russia’s Medvedev, 29, spent sixteen weeks as the world’s number one in 2022. Currently, he’s the 13th-ranked player in the world. He previously won the 2021 US Open and is a 20-time ATP champion. He won five of those 20 titles in 2023. Also, in 2021, he won the Davis Cup as well as the ATP Cup playing for the Russian national team.
Medvedev is experiencing a title drought now, not winning a single ATP tournament since a 2023 event in Rome, Italy.
Based on the current statistics and Medvedev’s recent results, the Russian tennis star (2,370 points in the ATP Rankings) is likely to fall out of the Top-15 or even out of the Top-20 after the US Open is over.
The 2025 US Open is being held on outdoor hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York between August 24 and September 7. The tournament will hand out $90 million in prize money. Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus are the reigning champions in men’s and women’s singles respectively.
Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC's recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations moved to exclude athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022, to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also canceling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.
On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from participating in the 2022 Davis Cup and the 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.