Sports sometimes involves discussion of bathroom breaks (or non–breaks), but that isn’t always tied to an on-field (or -ice, or -court) outcome. In tennis, though, that’s absolutely the case; limits on in-match coaching mean that the amount of time players can take for bathroom breaks is often heavily scrutinized, with long breaks leading to suggestions that those are being used for banned coaching . And the latest case of that came during the Andy Murray-Stefanos Tsitsipas U.S. Open first-round match Monday, where Murray (seen above during the match) took strong exception to how long Tsitsipas’ second bathroom break (at the start of the fifth set) took. Here’s more on that from Ben Rothenberg of No Challenges Remaining/Racquet:
Andy Murray now ranting to supervisor Gerry Armstrong about Tsitsipas' long off-court break.
"It's never once taken me that long to go to the toilet, ever."
Full of fight AND fiber, this Andy Murray.#USOpen
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 30, 2021
Whatever Tsitsipas is or isn't doing (and there's really no proof he's doing anything illicit, let's be clear here), mobile phones should be confiscated when players are going to play a match.
That tennis doesn't already do this as a rule is amateurish.https://t.co/qxANARdscM
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 30, 2021
Murray still seething to Armstrong about Tsitsipas' long absence from court.
"And you guys do nothing. 'Let's talk about it after the match,' but right now is when it matters."#USOpen
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 30, 2021
"Excuse me. Excuse me. Can I get the trainer?" Andy Murray asks the chair umpire, says with a wink towards the gamesmanship he's feeling.
"Nahhhhhh, it's OK."
Cracking himself up late in the fifth set, is Andy.#USOpen
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 30, 2021
In the end, Tsitsipas won, and Murray wasn’t happy:
#3 Stefanos Tsitsipas survives an odyssey, 2-6, 7-6(7), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 over Murray.
No love lost between these two with Murray's cheating accusations, but Tsitsipas is the winner.
"It's a fucking joke, every fucking week, fucking under-12," seethes Murray as he packs.#USOpen
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) August 30, 2021
That last one is rather Roy Kent-ish:
On one level here, Murray absolutely has a point. In a sport with strict regulations against players receiving coaching during a match, this certainly seems like it might be an attempt to flout that. (That, or Tsitsipas ate something that strongly disagreed with him.) But, as Rothenberg notes here, the larger issue would seem to be players’ ability to take a phone with them to the bathroom; if that wasn’t permitted, there probably wouldn’t be as many examinations of how much time they could or should spend in the bathroom. At any rate, the current rules led to a funny situation with one player discussing his own bathroom habits in an attempt to prove something against his opponent.
[Ben Rothenberg on Twitter; photo from Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports]
