{"id":109714,"date":"2025-08-25T20:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T20:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/109714\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T20:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T20:55:07","slug":"photographer-breaks-silence-over-lynching-after-us-open-court-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/109714\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographer breaks silence over ‘lynching’ after US Open court crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The photographer who interrupted a US Open match Sunday night, creating chaos in the Daniil Medvedev-Benjamin Bonzi opening-round match<\/a>, says he\u2019s a victim.<\/p>\n

Selcuk Acar, an experienced freelance journalist and photojournalist, told the Daily Mail<\/a> he did nothing wrong and didn\u2019t deserve to have his credentials revoked.<\/p>\n

With Bonzi serving for the match in the third set, Acar stepped onto the court, and the match was paused.<\/p>\n

Selcuk Acar rushes to find a seat after getting told to exit the court. ESPN\/X<\/p>\n

Umpire Greg Allensworth gave Bonzi another first serve due to the delay, which drew the ire of the 13th-seeded Medvedev and the Louis Armstrong Stadium crowd.<\/p>\n

A 6-minute, 24-second delay ensued, and Medvedev ended up winning the third set, although Bonzi prevailed in five, 6-3, 7-5, 6-7 (5), 0-6, 6-4.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a victim and totally innocent,\u201d Acar told the website. \u201cThis incident has already turned into a lynching, and although I\u2019m innocent, I\u2019ve suffered greatly. If there\u2019s a camera there, if it\u2019s monitored, it will show that I returned to the official twice and didn\u2019t enter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniil Medvedev was furious over the decision by the umpire. AP<\/p>\n

Acar insisted a security official told him \u201cthe match is stopped,\u201d which is when he entered. Acar said he has covered Presidential visits to Europe and NATO summits as well as the FIFA World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a photojournalist that can [make] such a mistake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The USTA, though, defended their decision to take Acar\u2019s credential away after the embarrassing incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe photographer had been instructed to stay in place by US Open security,\u201d the USTA said in a statement to The Post. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe photographer disregarded these instructions and improperly entered the court between serves on match point. The Chair Umpire also instructed the photographer to immediately sit down, and these instructions were also disregarded. The photographer\u2019s credential was revoked for the 2025 US Open.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a questionable ruling by the umpire, since Bonzi had already missed his first serve. <\/p>\n

Selcuk Acar defended his actions. ESPN\/X<\/p>\n

Medvedev angrily ran up to Allensworth, protesting the call. He urged the crowd to boo, and verbally went at the umpire.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you a man? Are you a man? Why are you shaking? What\u2019s wrong, huh? Guys, he wants to leave. He gets paid by the match not by the hour,\u201d Medvedev said of the umpire as he yelled to the crowd.<\/p>\n

Medvedev took the fourth set at love before faltering in the end. <\/p>\n

Daniil Medvedev lost in five sets to Benjamin Bonzi. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea. It was crazy,\u201d Bonzi said in his on-court interview, when asked to sum up the evening. \u201cI may have got some new fans, but also some new non-fans. The energy was wild. Thanks to all the ones who were booing. Thanks for the energy at the end in the fifth set as well. It was a crazy match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The photographer who interrupted a US Open match Sunday night, creating chaos in the Daniil Medvedev-Benjamin Bonzi opening-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[26603,99,428,14687],"class_list":{"0":"post-109714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-daniil-medvedev","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-us-open-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}