Irritable tennis star syndrome strikes

We are used to politicians behaving in an unsportsmanlike fashion, and making personal jibes against one another (while the rest of us are to be measured by a more parliamentary yardstick). But then, you have sportsmen who also occasionally show their unsporting side. No, we don’t mean the legitimate and by-now standard practice of sledging in cricket, but the latest high-pitched whine coming from tennis player Andy Murray that’s making quite a racket out of a perfectly decent racquet sport.

The British player who lost to the upstart Greek, Stefanos Tsitsipas, in the first round of the US Open on Tuesday, was fuming about the latter’s two long breaks at the end of the second and fourth sets — both of which the Greek won. There’s nothing in the rulebook that doesn’t allow a player to take breaks. As they say both off and on the court, when you gotta go, you gotta go. Murray may not have minded Tsitsipas’ bathroom breaks — if Murray had won. He did not. Thus the tweetburst: ‘Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitsipas twice as long to go to the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bazos (sic) to fly into space. Interesting.’ A quiet complaint or a ‘McEnroe’ tantrum would have done the needful. But Murray’s Irritable Andy Syndrome apart, we are just thankful he didn’t break into tears, his other usual go-to emotion if and when he wins a tournament.