FLUSH THESE SPATS DOWN THE PAN AND JUST GET ON WITH THE TENNIS

EVERY time the tennis world gets together there seems to be some gripe or controversy that nicks all the headlines when actually it should be the sport that’s making the news.

Andy Murray goes toe-to-toe with world No.3 Stefanos Tsitsipas over an enthralling four hours and 48 minutes and all the talk is about how long Tsitsipas took to change his clothes and have a wee.

Murray said he had lost respect for his opponent and claimed what he had done is cheating.

Everybody latched on and the next thing you have got is a mini-scandal.

Murray (pictured) was in fantastic form in the match and there were definite signs he could once again carve out a place at the top of world tennis. That might be wishful thinking and who knows whether he will ever be able to play seven matches in a row to reach a grand-slam final but the signs were good. This was the fifth longest match of Murray’s career and, bearing in mind he has been a professional for half of his 34 years and played 889 matches, that’s a tremendous effort. Tsitsipas took an eight-minute break at the end of the fourth set, which he won, anand a few minutes less at the eend of the third set, which he lost. This is within the rules ru and he has denied there th was any communication co by telephone te from the confines of thet toilet cubicle.

It aall seems pretty pathetic to me, althalthough once you get a reputation for bending the rules the locker room can be unforgiving.

The fact is Murray is gone, Tsitsipas has since progressed to round three and, if Hurricane Ida allows, the US Open will become more about the tennis and less about the spats.