Andy Murray vs Stefanos Tsitsipas’ US Open feud prompts call for rule change

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Sloane Stephens has called for the rules on bathroom breaks to be changed amid the Andy Murray and Stefanos Tsitsipas feud. The Greek took an eight-minute toilet break during their first-round match as the former world No 1 fumed and called it “cheating”. Stephens, a former US Open champion, now says she thinks the prolonged breaks are “gamesmanship” and wants to see something change following the debate sparked by Tsitsipas’ recent antics.

Stephens was asked for her thoughts on the current bathroom break debate after she retweeted a post Murray shared earlier this week, taking a dig at Tsitsipas.

The 2012 US Open champion took to Twitter the day after his five-set loss to the Greek and wrote: “Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitipas twice as long to go the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bazos to fly into space. Interesting.”

After Stephens shared the tweet, she was quizzed on her opinion of the current bathroom break rules, as reporter Ben Rothenberg recalled her previously having spoken about gamesmanship tactics and she said: “If it’s not one scam, it’s another.”

“Oh yeah, they’re all scammers,” the world No 66 joked, following her straight-sets win over Coco Gauff in round two.

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“But I honestly just thought Andy’s tweet was really funny, I didn’t see exactly what happened, I’m not sure, I just thought it was hilarious and we all are like huge Andy fans, we love him,” she added, explaining why she shared the Brit’s dig at Tsitsipas.

Although the former world No 3 hadn’t seen what happened during Murray’s fiery clash with the third seed, she agreed the rules needed to be changed after experiencing similar tactics on the WTA Tour.

Stephens continued: “I can’t speak for what happened in that match but I do know on the girls’ side there is still a lot of that which is gamesmanship and I think there definitely needs to be a rule or changes.

“They make a lot of rule changes for smaller things like, you know they took one minute off the warm up, but if someone goes to the bathroom for nine minutes, no one says anything.”

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The 2017 champion in Flushing Meadows hoped that the current controversy sparked by Tsitsipas could finally make change over bathroom break rules, with the Greek leaving the court during his second-round match for eight minutes once again.

“Like there’s so many little things that can be changed and looked at, and I think that hasn’t been done so I think now that there is a lot of talk about it and people come into press and people tweet about it and whatever, maybe it’ll get a little bit more attention and that gamesmanship will kind of turn and change a little bit,” she added.

The American clarified that she thought bathroom breaks should still be allowed, but leaned towards the proposition of a time limit.

“I don’t think you should be gone from the court for like, I don’t know. Six to eight minutes is a long time to leave a match. That like changes the whole momentum of a match and I feel like if you’re changing your clothes like what are you changing? What are you doing in there?” the 28-year-old said.

Stephens noted that it would be tricky to determine a time limit as she acknowledged some bathroom breaks and clothes-changes took a longer period of time, but thought five minutes was enough for a player to have a lengthy change of clothing during a sweaty match.

“I think there was a rule a couple years ago where girls could only – it was like a three minute rule or something in the bathroom,” she recalled.

“But again if you ever change out of a wet sports bra, which I don’t think you have, you wouldn’t know how difficult that is.

“But that is like, maybe a five minute? But when you get into like six, seven, eight, nine minutes, like ok what are you doing in there? Like, do you need help? I can come help you. Like, what’s happening?

“So I think that’s more of where of the issues are because it just becomes pure gamesmanship.”
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