What does Reilly Opelka have to do with Daniil Medvedev US Open meltdown? Dallas Open call-out explained

Daniil Medvedev had an eventful night in New York, where he suffered a shocking defeat in the first round of the US Open against Benjamin Bonzi with a score of 6-3, 7-5, 6-7, 0-6, 6-4. Medvedev managed to save a match point in the third set and managed to stage an impressive comeback to make it 2-2, but lost the contest in the fifth set.

During a match point in the third set, Medvedev had a fiery conversation with chair umpire Greg Allensworth. The incident happened when Allensworth awarded a first serve to Bonzi while asking the cameraman, a US Open photographer, who encroached onto the court in anticipation that the match would finish soon.

That incident left Medvedev furious. He argued that the photographer was not an inconvenience for Bonzi, but he was for him. "Are you a man? Are you a man? Why are you shaking? What's wrong, huh?" said Medvedev. That was not the end of the argument as Medvedev then went on to remind the crowd sitting in the arena what America’s Reilly Opelka had to say about the umpire in the past. "What did Reilly Opelka say?,” asked Medvedev. “He earns by the match, not by the hour. Umpire just wants to go home." He then screamed three times: "What did Reilly Opelka say?" before returning to his baseline.

Opelka had a fiery argument with chair umpire Allensworth during the round of 16 clash against Britain’s Cameron Norrie at the Dallas Open earlier this year in February. During the match, Opelka was penalised for violating the code for confronting spectators, who according to him, was delibrately coughing to interrupt his serve. After the match, Opelka asked the authorities to penalise chair umpire Allensworth and called him the ‘worst ref in ATP’.

"Greg Allensworth is the worst ref [umpire] in the ATP," said Opelka back then. "We were talking about him in the locker room, all the players, it really is a coincidence about two days ago [we were talking about the worst umpire on the tour and he] is the worst one. Allensworth is real bad, he almost changed the outcome of that match, just because he doesn't really know what he is doing. He got emotional, he got very tense and frantic and he couldn't give me an answer. He didn't tell that guy to shut up. He [the heckler] was doing it for three points, he didn't do his job so I had to tell him 'get out of here', the guy was being quite rude.

He continued by saying: "It shouldn't be one-sided traffic, if you want to be disrespectful to me, I can't just be a punching bag and if the ref isn't doing his job and he penalises me it is not a good look. It almost changed the outcome of the match. It was a big point and he didn't do his job then penalised me for it, so he did two things wrong. I hope the ATP penalises him, maybe sideline him for a few tournaments."

Talking to the media after the match, Medvedev admitted that his comments would not go down well with authorities who would look to fine him for breaching the disciplinary code set for the players. "I am getting a big enough fine, so if I speak, I'm in big trouble, so I'm not going to speak,” said Medvedev. “Not everyone knows what I'm talking about when I said Reilly. Reilly got fined big time for this, so I'm going to get a big fine too."

The incident was a true representation of how difficult things have been for Medvedev on the court this year. For the first time since 2017, Medvedev failed to get past the second round of any Grand Slam. His best outing this year came at the Australian Open, where he lost in the round of 64 to America’s Learner Tien in a five-set thriller with a score of 6-3, 7-6, 6-7, 1-6, 7-6.