$112,500. That’s the total in fines handed out by US Open organisers at the 2026 edition, with the breakdown made public on 15 September.
The reasons fit in three lines: smashed racquets, verbal abuse, unsportsmanlike conduct. Four French players are on the list, among them Arthur Fils, Corentin Moutet and Terence Atmane. Aryna Sabalenka, a former world number 1, is also among those sanctioned.
In our newsroom, the total wasn’t read in dollars. It was converted.
I take the figure, I divide it by one restring fitted, tension 24, multifilament, I gave up gut after the tendinitis. You restring my entire club for two seasons. Three if the captain goes for the cheap stuff. And let me be clear: I don’t break racquets, I break strings. It’s the opposite gesture, really.
He keeps coming back to one thing: at his club there is no tariff. On a Sunday, a rested forehand hit a bit hard into the clay of court 4 costs you the captain’s silence for the whole doubles, then one line in the club group chat, then nothing. Free, he says, and a lot more of a deterrent than an accounting line.
Roland looked at the total without moving.
A hundred and twelve thousand five hundred dollars for fits of temper. In 1980, a fit of temper cost you one look from the stands. It was cheaper and it lasted longer. Well. It’s the times.
The document published on 15 September gives the amounts. It doesn’t say how many racquets left the tournament in two pieces. The club player, meanwhile, redid his sums at tension 25, just to see.
It’s true, we checked: L'Équipe.
