Stefanos Tsitsipas’s toilet antics create controversy in New York – Palatinate

By Nick Searle-Donoso

“It’s by no means taken me that lengthy to go to the toilet ever,” yelled Andy Murray, annoyed by the size of the toilet break taken by Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier than the fifth set of their first-round contest which the Greek would ultimately go on to win. 

Seven minutes and ten seconds. That was the size of Tsitsipas’s rest room break. In fact, Murray has by no means taken that lengthy within the rest room, ever. However is seven minutes and ten seconds too lengthy to spend on a bathroom break throughout a US Open match?

Everyone knows {that a} primary might be accomplished in a comparatively brief period of time. A quantity two, at extra of a push maybe, can be accomplished in lower than seven minutes and ten seconds. Altering one’s whole sweat-drenched outfit (full with headbands and wristbands), nevertheless, might fairly take seven minutes and ten seconds, or even perhaps longer.

The lavatory break which has created a lot controversy in latest days didn’t really contain a change of apparel. Relatively, Tsitsipas left his PE-at-primary-school-style health club bag on the court docket when he visited the toilet. Armed with solely a towel, Tsitsipas was solely intent on scatological enterprise.

Sadly, taking an extreme period of time within the rest room doesn’t break any guidelines in tennis. (In fact, that didn’t forestall Murray from calling Tsitsipas a “cheater” repeatedly through the deciding set.)

The issue is, subsequently, with the principles. A set time restrict (say, 5 minutes) with accompanying penalties for tardiness returning to the court docket is the plain resolution to the issue. Nonetheless, options in tennis are infrequently that straightforward.

One difficulty is that the amenities should not at all times the identical distance away from every court docket. At some tournaments, it may take the gamers at the least 5 minutes to even attain the bathroom. 

Contemplating this complication, some ex-professional gamers (so-called specialists) have advised that one of the best resolution is to put off rest room breaks altogether. Their logic: I by no means wanted the bathroom once I performed tennis, so why would anybody else? Fallacious reasoning, wouldn’t you agree?

For somebody like me who has a bladder roughly the dimensions of a marble, I couldn’t think about being unable to go for a bathroom break throughout a whole match, which is more likely to take a number of hours, particularly given the quantity of liquid that one must eat to stay hydrated.

This resolution additionally fails to think about the truth that feminine gamers would possibly expertise bleeding throughout a match, an necessary nuance to the controversy which is commonly ignored by (many male) pundits. 

Tsitsipas himself has an extended historical past of toilet-related shenanigans. In an notorious match on the Miami Open in 2018 towards Daniil Medvedev, Tsitsipas’s prolonged mid-match rest room break led to an iconic slagging off contest.

Medveev’s complaints to the umpire prompted Tsitsipas’s gloriously blunt: “Know your home. Bulls*** Russian”. Medvedev replied in equally monosyllabic phrases: ‘Man, you higher shut your f*** up, OK?’

Then, earlier this month in Cincinnati, Alexander Zverev known as out Tsitsipas for his prolonged rest room behaviour. Spying Tsitsipas’s coach/father texting on his telephone, he even questioned whether or not Tsitsipas was receiving teaching through telecommunication whereas he was doing his rest room enterprise.

Following their epic match, Murray commented: “It’s not a lot leaving the court docket. It’s the period of time. It’s nonsense and he is aware of it.” Murray doubled down on his stance the following morning with this tweet, one of the best a part of which is unquestionably his (hopefully deliberate) misspelling of each the title of the CEO of Amazon and the title of his Greek opponent: 

So, Tsitsipas might not have damaged any guidelines when he sat on the bathroom for seven minutes and ten seconds, maybe considering whether or not there are extra issues in heaven and earth than there are in his philosophy, nevertheless, he definitely misplaced Andy Murray’s respect.

In his second-round match towards Adrian Mannarino, Tsitsipas was once more booed by the New York crowd following an eight-minute rest room break. Evidently ‘’Lavatory gate’ won’t merely be flushed away by tennis professionals or spectators alike.

Picture: Marianne Bevis through flickr