Andy Murray launched a fresh rocket at Stefanos Tsitsipas, posting on social media the Greek takes longer bathroom breaks than it took Jeff Bezos to reach space; the Amazon founder made a short journey to space, in the first crewed flight of his rocket ship, in July
Tuesday 31 August 2021 17:28, UK
Andy Murray griped US Open conqueror Stefanos Tsitsipas took longer on bathroom breaks than it took billionaire Jeff Bezos to reach outer space in a social media post on Tuesday.
Murray, 34, blasted the Greek third seed for the "nonsense" and said he had lost respect for him after Tsitsipas disappeared off court for almost eight minutes at the start of the fifth set.
However, after closing out an epic five-set victory over the 2012 champion in just less than five hours, the Greek denied bending the rules with his bathroom breaks.
"If there's something that he has to tell me, we should speak the two of us to kind of understand what went wrong," Tsitsipas said.
"Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitsipas twice as long to go the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bezos to fly into space. Interesting," the Scot tweeted on Tuesday.
Tsitsipas' younger brother, Petros, responded to Murray's broadside: "Never expected this kind of behaviour, from a supposedly tennis legend!" before the tweet was later deleted.
When Tsitsipas disappeared off-court break before the start of the fifth he was given a time violation, but Murray was clearly wound up.
After dropping serve in the opening game he was heard muttering about "cheating" and later asked supervisor Gerry Armstrong why it was taking Tsitsipas so long.
"What's he doing in there? It's never taken me that long to go to the toilet," he moaned.
Tsitsipas also took another bathroom break before the third set and a medical timeout in the run-up to the fourth.
He will take on world No 44 Adrian Mannarino of France in the second round on Wednesday.
Murray concluded he was "really disappointed" and "frustrated" having taken the third seed the distance in a rollercoaster ride on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
"I know I'm capable of playing that tennis. I need to spend time on the court, getting the chance to play against these guys," said the Scot.
"Ultimately when I get on the court with them, need to prove it. I guess tonight I proved some things to a certain extent. Obviously didn't win the match tonight.
"From a physical perspective, I thought I did quite well. Would have liked to have done a little bit better physically at times. But there was also other circumstances that were not helping that either.
"Overall I did well, but I'm really, really disappointed, really disappointed after that, frustrated, all those things. Really disappointed."
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