US Open debutant Fiona Crawley loses $81,000 due to bizarre rule: "It's unreal"

Fiona Crawley got through the qualifying rounds for the first time ever at the US Open, where she made her Grand Slam debut in the first round.

In that first round, she lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (pictured), but still earned $81,000 in prize money, according to the New York Post.

The prize money created a problem for Crawley, a student-athlete and University of North Carolina senior.

According to NCAA amateurism rules, student-athletes may earn up to $10,000 in prize money. Moreover, that money has to come from the event sponsor, wrote the New York Post.

If a student-athlete earns more than $10,000, then that money "may not exceed actual and necessary expenses for each subsequent event in the calendar year," the New York Post quoted NCAA rules as saying.

Crawley took a tough decision and decided to forgo her prize money. If not, she would lose her NCAA eligibility.

"I would never take the money and never risk my eligibility, but I worked my butt off this week and it seems unreal that there are football and basketball players making millions in NIL deals, and I can’t take the money that I worked so hard for," Crawley is quoted by The News & Observer.

Losing the money is a huge blow for Crawley, who saw a dream come true at Flushing Meadows. "I’ve dreamed about this moment for so long … since I was 5 years old and old enough to know what the U.S. Open was," she is quoted on the official US Open website.

"After the match, when I finished, I definitely was in shock. I've had a day and night to process it, and I'm still definitely in shock. I feel like I won't really digest it until I'm about to serve or return the first point of my first [main-draw] match," she added.

Despite losing her prize money, Crawley took the next important step in her career. Will she now advance to her next Grand Slam?