Australian Open: 'Toilet rules need to be black and white' - Tim Henman on Andy Murray bathroom row

ByBen Snowball

Updated 20/01/2023 at 16:19 GMT

Andy Murray was left smarting at the rules during his epic win over Thanasi Kokkinakis in the Australian Open second round on Wednesday. The Brit was denied a toilet break before the fifth set in a match that eventually finished at 4am in Melbourne. “You want it [the rules] to be black and white, because it is something that perhaps has been abused by the players in the past,” said Tim Henman.

Tim Henman sympathised with Andy Murray after he was denied a toilet break during his titanic victory over Thanasi Kokkinakis at the 2023 Australian Open, but insisted the rules had to be “black and white” to avoid being open to abuse.

Murray was left fuming after being told he could not answer nature’s call ahead of the fifth set in Thursday’s epic, having already used his allotted bathroom breaks.

“Do you know something? I respect the rules. It’s a joke, it is a joke and you know it as well,” the 35-year-old said to the umpire. “It’s so disrespectful that the tournament has us out here until three, f***ing four in the morning and we’re not allowed to take a piss.

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“It’s disrespectful to you, it’s disrespectful to the ball children, disrespectful to the players and we’re not allowed to go to the toilet. It’s ridiculous.”

Ironically, Murray had campaigned for toilet break rules to be introduced after his defeat to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the US Open in 2021. Murray lashed out at his opponent’s "nonsense” comfort breaks, with the Greek having a lengthy toilet break at the end of the second set and another eight-minute break at the end of the fourth.

The ATP soon introduced rules that allowed players to have one bathroom break in best-of-three matches and two in best-of-five – rules that caught Murray short in his second-round thriller on Thursday.

Henman wondered if the rules could be more flexible to allow bonus toilet breaks in specific circumstances, but said there needed to be “clarity”.

“You want it to be black and white, because it is something that perhaps has been abused by the players in the past,” said Eurosport expert Henman.

“We're trying to get away from these types of interruptions. But having said that, if it's 3am and you've been on court for five hours, and you need a bathroom break, then it’s difficult to decline that.”

He added: “It just seemed unfortunate at that time of the night and at that stage of the match. If any player, not just Andy Murray, needed a bathroom break, could they have been a little bit more flexible?”

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Murray did not complete victory over Kokkinakis until 4am local time in Melbourne, prompting Mats Wilander to wonder whether there is a better solution to matches that run late.

“When you have tennis matches finishing at four o'clock in the morning, I think it's very unfair for the player that's involved that's winning. Obviously going to bed at seven o'clock in the morning is very difficult and just because you get one day off it doesn't really do enough,” said Wilander.

“So we have a lot of famous cases where that's been a big problem in the past and it seems at the Australian Open it happens more regularly than at the US Open, where they also have a night session.

“I think they need to look at the schedule and maybe have a deadline where we're not playing past - let's say 2:00 AM - because for Andy Murray right now, it's very, very difficult to come back.”

He added: “It's also not really fair for the ball kids and the referees and of course the stadium is often pretty empty at four o'clock in the morning when it's the most important part of the match.”

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Stream the 2023 Australian Open live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.co.uk.

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