US Open 2021: Stefanos Tsitsipas draws anger from fans, competitors over his long toilet breaks

Given what’s going on in there, people are generally very sensitive to the rules of bathroom etiquette and do not look kindly on those who violate them. One such unwritten rule of using the bathroom is to do what needs to be done without taking too long to do so - which a player at the US Open apparently violates.

Greek tennis player Stefanos Tsitsipas has been the subject of ridicule at the US Open, as both fans and competitors are unhappy with the excessively long toilet breaks he has taken during the tournament. On Wednesday, Tsitsipas took an eight-minute toilet break between the end of the third set and the start of the fourth during a match against Adrian Mannarino.

This led to cheers from the crowd, according to The Guardian.

Tsitsipas' habits continued a trend throughout the tournament. He earned Andy Murray’s anger through his bathroom breaks, which Murray believed were specifically and deliberately expired to give him a competitive edge.

“When you play a brutal match that way, you know, by stopping for seven, eight minutes, you cool down,” Murray said. “You can prepare mentally as much as you want, but it’s the fact that it affects you physically when you take a break for that long, well, several times during the fight.”

Murray’s complaints were shared by both Mannarino and Sloane Stephens, who took issue with The Grand Slam rules regarding bathroom breaks. While the rules say players must take a “reasonable” amount of time, exactly what is “reasonable” is very ambiguous.

For his part, Tsitsipas defended himself after the hunters from the crowd, claiming he had done nothing wrong.

“I have nothing against them. I love the fans. But some people do not understand it. That’s all,” Tsitsipas said. “They do not understand. They have not played tennis at a high level to understand how much effort and how hard it is to do what we do. Sometimes we need a short break to do what we do. must do.”

Tsitsipas ended up winning over Mannarino and moved him on to Round 3.