NEW YORK — Stefanos Tsitsipas has lost in the first round for the second straight major tournament, calling the chair umpire a “weirdo” during an argument as he battled cramps during the fourth set of his US Open match on Tuesday.
Tsitsipas, the No. 8 seed from Greece, was beaten by Andrey Rublev 6-4, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (7), 7-5.
Tsitsipas opened the Grand Slam season by beating Roger Federer en route to the Australian Open semifinals. But after a fourth-round run at the French Open, he lost in his first match at Wimbledon and then drew a tough opening opponent at Flushing Meadows in Rublev, a quarterfinalist here in 2017.
Tsitsipas battled cramps during the fourth set of the 3-hour, 54-minute match and was given a time violation for not returning to the court quickly enough during one changeover, when he argued with the chair umpire and called him a “weirdo.”
Rublev was coming off a rout of Federer earlier this month in a US Open tuneup tournament.