Andy Murray uses Jeff Bezos to mock Stefanos Tsitsipas after US Open controversy

Andy Murray mocked Stefanos Tsitsipas in a withering tweet after the Greek third seed won their dramatic five-set match at the US Open in controversial circumstances.

Murray produced his best performance in four years to take the contest to a deciding set, but was disgruntled when Tsitsipas took the opportunity for an eight-minute bathroom break before the start of the fifth. Tsitsipas immediately broke a furious Murray and went on to close out a 2-6, 7-6(7), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory in just less than five hours.

“Fact of the day,” Murray tweeted on Tuesday morning in New York, before comparing Tsitsipas’s exploits with Amazon billionaire founder Jeff Bezos’s recent brief rocket flight. “It takes Stefanos Tsitipas [sic] twice as long to go the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bazos [sic] to fly into space. Interesting.”

Murray, who could be heard shouting “it’s cheating” towards his box during the final set, condemned the long break as “nonsense” and said he had lost respect for his opponent.

“It’s not so much leaving the court. It’s the amount of time,” Murray said. “It’s nonsense and he knows it. That’s annoying for me because it sounds like sour grapes because you’ve lost a match. I would have said the same thing if I’d won, I promise.

“It’s just disappointing because I feel it influenced the outcome of the match. I’m not saying I necessarily win that match, for sure, but it had influence on what was happening after those breaks.”

But Tsitsipas denied bending the rules. “If there’s something that he has to tell me, we should speak, the two of us, to kind of understand what went wrong. I don’t think I broke any rules. I played by the guidelines, how everything is. I don’t know how my opponent feels when I’m out there playing the match. It’s not really my priority.

“As far as I’m playing by the rules and sticking to what the ATP says is fair, then the rest is fine. I have nothing against him. Absolutely nothing.”