Immediately after slipping at the rear of 2-1 in the initially 3 sets Friday at the U.S. Open up in opposition to 18-yr-previous Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas encountered boos at Arthur Ashe Stadium when he exited the courtroom for a lavatory split right before the start of the fourth established.
Tsitsipas has a short while ago occur less than hearth by other players on the ATP Tour for taking gain of the imprecise wording in the 2021 Grand Slam rulebook concerning toilet breaks and improve of apparel breaks. The rule does not record a limit for how very long the crack need to very last.
Tsitsipas has been accused by other players, including Andy Murray, of utilizing this time to text with his father, Apostolos, who is his coach. Soon after slipping to Tsitsipas in a 5-established very first-spherical match that involved one of these extended breaks, Murray stated he took difficulty far more with the length of the split, alternatively than the crack alone. In this U.S. Open, Tsitsipas’ breaks have lasted about 7-8 minutes.
His split on Friday afternoon was considerably shorter than some of his former kinds at the Open. Just after tournament officials escorted him into the bathroom up coming to the courtroom, he returned to the courtroom in fewer than four minutes. This supervision was new in past matches, he’d been permitted to wander to the toilet (or locker-space) on his individual.
The break appeared to give him a large raise, however, as he took the fourth established 6-. But Tsitsipas dropped the fifth established in a extraordinary tiebreaker, ending his U.S. Open up run.
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