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Game, set and DEATHMATCH: Drone TERROR ORDEAL at US Open tennis tournament

Robot runs amuck, teacher cuffed

Tennis fans faced a terrifying nightmare Thursday evening after a drone was flown and crashed into an empty section of seats at the US Open, injuring no one.

As the authorities scrambled to deal with the flying menace, hapless teacher Daniel Verley, 26, was seized, and formally charged four hours later when New York cops figured out whether they could actually pin something on him with something.

They could: reckless operation of a drone, and operating a drone in a New York City park outside of a prescribed area. Verley is due to appear in court on September 16.

Verley, who teaches at the Academy of Innovative Technology in Brooklyn, allegedly careered the small black drone into stairs in an empty part of the Louis Armstrong Stadium about 2045 ET toward the end of the second-round women's singles match of Flavia Pennetta of Italy and Monica Niculescu of Romania.

The crash had no major impact on the game, and in many respects was the most interesting part of it; Pennetta won 6-1, 6-4.

Pennetta said later that she had heard the drone fly by but wasn't sure what it was. She then terrified herself by imagining it was a bomb. A very small bomb made of plastic that disintegrated when it hit a bit of concrete.

Pennetta wasn't the only one scared: her coach and physical therapist – who were as far away from the crash as it was possible to be – also feared for their lives. Pennetta, 26-seeded in the world, noted with no level of understatement that: "If there had been spectators, it would have hit them and done a lot of damage."

The entire terrifying event was captured on video. Be warned: it is not for the faint-hearted. ®

Youtube Video

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