Andy Murray broke his usually cool-tempered tone during his latest match at the Australian Open.
The tennis star's anger comes over 'disrespectful' rules that saw players not allowed to take a toilet break during the five-hour and 45-minute match.
Up against home favourite Thanasi Kokkinakis, the player shared his frustration with the umpire of the match, and described the situation as "a joke."
Andy Murray describes Australian Open as a 'joke'
Saying: "Do you know something? I respect the rules. It's so disrespectful that the tournament has us out here until 3 f***** 4 o'clock in the morning and we're not allowed to go and take a p***.
"It's a joke. And you know it as well. It's disrespectful. It's disrespectful to you. It's disrespectful to the ball children. It's disrespectful to the players. And we're not allowed to go to the toilet. Ridiculous."
(Warning: Video includes potentially offensive language)
@eurosport Andy Murray made his feelings clear after being denied a toilet break at the end of the 4th set #ausopen #andymurray #ausopen2023 #murray ♬ original sound - Eurosport
The match took place overnight and ended at 4.05am with a heated rally that eventually saw Murray claim his victory.
However, Murray's comments have received some backlash from those that organise the Open.
Tournament director and Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley spoke on Channel 9 today defending the scheduling of the match.
Saying: “Over the last few days we have had extreme heat, we’ve had over five breaks of rain … so we’ve had three late nights with scheduling trying to catch up with matches.”
Adding: "You’ve also got to protect the matches. If you just put on one match at night and there’s an injury you don’t have anything for fans or broadcasters.
The ultimate warrior 💪@andy_murray | #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/Vtwe3X2iey
— LTA (@the_LTA) January 19, 2023
“But you are always going to have an out-of-the- box situation where like last night it goes extra long unexpectedly.”
He added: “You would expect from 7pm to 12am (evening session) in that five-hour window, you would get two matches. We also have to protect the matches. If you just put one match at night and there's an injury, you don't have anything for fans or broadcasters.
“At this point there is no need to alter the schedule. We always look at it when we do the debrief like we do every year, we've had long matches before, at this point we've got to fit the matches in in the 14 days so you don't have many options.”
