At the St Petersburg Open, tennis player Ilya Ivashka blew his top at chair umpire Richard Haigh after copping a harsh penalty over a toilet break.
Ivashka was penalised a full game after he took a toilet break during the second set of his match against Adrian Mannarino.
The Belarusian won the first set 6-3 and was trailing 2-3 during a medical timeout when he asked the chair umpire to have an emergency toilet break, which Haigh and the doctor seemingly allowed.
"But you need to be as fast as possible. You're on your own time," the umpire told Ivashka.
As the 26-year-old left the court a medical timeout was not announced. Meanwhile the shot clock had reportedly not started either, giving no indication on how much time Ivashka had used, or how much time he had left, as the chair umpire spoke to the match supervisor because of the "medical issue" the world No.141 also had.
"He went to the bathroom in the warm-up, so then it would be a code violation for a delayed game when he comes back," Haigh was heard telling the official as Ivashka returned to his bench.
The issue of Haigh's definition of "on your own time" appeared to be lost in translation with Ivashka, as he was subsequently penalised for the time he was off court.
Ivashka got increasingly frustrated with receiving the code violation.
"It wasn't on my own time. I asked for a medical [timeout]," Ivashka argued to Haigh and match supervisor Jorge Mandl.
"Medical timeout can't be used to go to a bathroom," Haigh replied.
"This was an emergency because I couldn't stand on court. If you wanted me to s--t right on the court, I could do it," Ivashka said.
"What does that mean, 'on your own time'?"
https://twitter.com/sPETEcore/status/1315979220934369280?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwWhen Haigh explained Ivashka's toilet break had cost him the entire game, making the second set score 4-2 in Mannarino's favour, the tense exchange went up another level.
"I understand the problem. I'm letting you know the rules. Because of the amount of time you took going to the bathroom, you were late coming back to the court by three times, so it's a delay of game warning, delay of game point penalty and then game penalty," Haigh said.
"No, no. But this is a joke. Come on," Ivashka began, stunned at the decision.
"This is not normal. How can this be possible?
"That is not possible! That is not possible!" Ivashka then screamed.
"You're on a game penalty. If you keep shouting like that it will be another game penalty," Haigh replied.
"I can understand but I have to follow the rules."
"But which rules? This is not normal," Ivashka complained.
"Game penalty for going to the toilet! I'm not going to play because this is something ridiculous. This is something ridiculous. You didn't tell me."
"We told you," supervisor Mandl said.
"No! No!" Ivashka screamed.
"How am I to understand 'on your own time'?
"Nobody f--king told me!"
Ivashka eventually moved on from the setback and was able to fight his way back into the set and close out the match, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6).
He will next face either Serbian Viktor Troicki or Canada's Denis Shapovalov.
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