Belinda Bencic’s U.S. Open loss to Yulia Putintseva came with a moment that quickly raised a familiar question about tennis discipline. The No. 12 seed hit a ball into the crowd during the match on Day 3 of the 2026 U.S. Open, struck someone in the stands and later received a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Putintseva went on to complete a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 comeback victory, but the bigger talking point was the incident itself. Bencic’s reaction, and the ruling that followed, put the spotlight on a long-running issue in tennis: when a ball is struck toward the crowd, the punishment can depend heavily on whether the person hit is hurt.
What happened on court
The incident came in the seventh game of the third set, when Bencic hit the ball outside and it ended up in the crowd. Arnaud Gabas, speaking in the context of the ruling, said: “She hit the ball outside. She hit someone. Was it intentional? No,”
Gabas also noted: “Eventually she hit someone, the person is fine. She received a code violation,”
That sequence made the immediate outcome clear. Bencic was not defaulted, but she did leave the court with a penalty after the ball struck a spectator.
Why the ruling matters
The case fits into a line of recent tennis incidents that have drawn comparisons to prior defaults and non-defaults. In 2020 at the U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic was defaulted after striking a ball in frustration and hitting a linesperson in the throat. At 2022 Wimbledon, Stefanos Tsitsipas hammered a ball into the crowd against Nick Kyrgios and escaped a default.
There have also been other notable cases involving Alex Michelsen, Térence Atmane and Miyu Kato. Kato’s case was especially relevant because the ruling changed from a warning to a default after a ballkid was accidentally struck.
That is the key context around Bencic’s case: intent matters, but so does what happens next. The fact that the person struck was fine appears to have influenced the outcome, just as it has in other recent rulings.
More than just one point
Bencic’s reaction also drew attention because players are aware of how quickly these situations can escalate. Yulia Putintseva pointed out the contrast in a related remark, saying: “But the person that (Novak) Djokovic hit was also fine,”
For Bencic, the match result ended up being secondary to the moment that preceded it. She was charged with unsportsmanlike conduct, Putintseva finished the comeback, and the episode became another example of how closely tennis officials examine ball-strike incidents at the sport’s biggest events.
In this case, the answer to the default question was no. But the incident showed again that in tennis, the difference between a warning, a code violation and a default can come down to where the ball goes, who it hits and whether anyone is injured.
