Picture Credit: Twitter
Carlos Alcaraz and Stefanos Tsitsipas battled each other in an intense quarter-final of the ATP Barcelona Open. Both players were on top of their game as they played some breathtaking shots on the clay court. But in the end, it was the 18-year-old Spaniard who took a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 win as he cut short his Greek compatriot’s late comeback.
But as every great sporting contest demands drama, this duel also presented a lot of it. In one of the changeovers in the intense third set, Alcaraz decided to go for a bathroom break. Soon Tsitsipas approached the umpire and questioned him about the time taken by Alcaraz in the washroom. However, the chair umpire didn’t take up these allegations.
Seeing the official’s reaction, world number five was enraged and found himself in a heated argument with the umpire. However, the argument started going out of hand as Tsitsipas angrily expressed, “If you are wrong, you should be fired.”
Check out the video here:
I went to the bathroom just to turn off my mind: Alcaraz
After the match, Alcaraz revealed that he went to the washroom to clear up his mind. "I went to the bathroom just to turn off my mind, just trying to change what I played at the end of the second set, just to be focussed on the third set," he explained. "Forget everything in the match and just give 100 per cent in the third set", Alcaraz said.
He also deemed this victory as one of his best on the clay court as he said, “Probably my biggest win on clay court. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable game that I played, an unbelievable atmosphere that I lived today on the court. It was unbelievable everything. The atmosphere here, the crowd, the level that I played, the level of the match. It was incredible.”