Sid_Vicious
G.O.A.T.
Shoutout to Ralph on TT who is particularly against this. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/s...thers-use-bathroom-trips-to-regroup.html?_r=0
WIMBLEDON, England — After Rafael Nadal lost the first set of his third-round match against Mikhail Kukushkin on Centre Court, he whispered something to the umpire and left the court.
He was gone for more than three minutes. Kukushkin, like a date momentarily abandoned at a cafe, sat in his chair, staring straight ahead, waiting for Nadal to return. He tapped his toes amid the white noise of murmuring fans and rain pattering on the roof.
Nadal returned and won the next three sets by identical 6-1 scores.
“I needed to go to the bathroom; that’s all,” Nadal said afterward. “I bring my T-shirt and my bandanna to change that there because I had to go to the bathroom. Not because I wanted to have a break, no.”
Something as ordinary as a toilet break has increasingly become a debated topic at the top levels of tennis. Does the player really need to go, or is it a ruse to buy time, clear the mind and alter momentum? Did he or she flush? Does it matter?
And by the way, where is the nearest bathroom to Court 16, anyway?
They are surprisingly complicated questions for such a mundane task. And they stir something inside any player or fan who views leaving the court as unbecoming to the sport.
The drama in tennis comes, in large part, by its unusual sporting spectacle — players alone on a stage, their every action and emotion visible for all to see, even, and perhaps especially, between games and sets. There is no halftime to regroup, no dugout to hide in, no helmet to shrink inside, no teammate or coach to deflect attention.
Bathroom breaks are an escape hatch. There are no statistics kept on their frequency, but most top players have used them at trying times in key matches.
“It’s gotten completely out of hand,” said the former player John McEnroe, now a television analyst. “Most of the times, it’s when someone loses a set. Very rarely does it happen that you go out when you’re winning.”
When Andy Murray was still in pursuit of his first Grand Slam title, he won the first two sets of the 2012 United States Open final against Novak Djokovic and then lost the next two. He excused himself.
As Djokovic and the restless crowd waited, Murray stood alone in a tiny, one-toilet bathroom just off the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I stood in front of the mirror with sweat dripping down my face, and I knew I had to change what was going on inside,” he said the next spring. “So I started talking. Out loud. ‘You are not losing this match,’ I said to myself. ‘You are not losing this match.’ I started out a little tentative, but my voice got louder. ‘You are not going to let this one slip. This is your time.’
“At first, I felt a bit weird, but I felt something change inside me. I was surprised by my response. I knew I could win.”
He did not say whether he used the toilet.
The rules are simple; their enforcement is tricky. At Grand Slam events, women are allowed two bathroom breaks during their three-set matches. In men’s singles, with five-set matches, three breaks are allowed.
“A player is allowed to request permission to leave the court for a reasonable time for a toilet break/change of attire break (women’s events),” the Grand Slam tournament rule book reads. “Toilet breaks should be taken on a set break and can be used for no other purpose. Change of attire breaks (women’s events) must be taken on a set break.”
Subsequent breaks, or breaks in the middle of a set, can be requested, but the player might be subject to penalties if the break lasts longer than 90 seconds. Ana Ivanovic was docked four points for a break during a tournament in 2010 in Austria.
The breaks are not a new phenomenon, just one that seems to be more regularly employed at key moments.
“I can tell you I abused the rule once or twice myself,” said Pam Shriver, who won 22 Grand Slam doubles titles (one mixed) and was ranked as high as third in singles. “More when I lost composure. Not so much in a major. Wimbledon, I wouldn’t think of doing it. But a couple of times at tour events where I was tired and burned out and emotional and I just needed to collect myself, I used it.”
Roger Federer once used one to wait for the sun to move, after losing the first set of a 2010 Australian Open quarterfinal match against Nikolay Davydenko.
“When the sun comes from the side, the ball seems half the size and is just hard to hit,” Federer explained after rallying to win. “I never take toilet breaks. But I thought, Why not? I just hoped with every minute it took, the sun would move another centimeter.”
In a match that followed, Djokovic took a break against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, an absence largely excused because Djokovic said he had to throw up.
Last year in Montreal, the Canadian Milos Raonic acknowledged that he took a bathroom break “to regroup.” During last year’s Wimbledon final against Marion Bartoli, Sabine Lisicki took a bathroom break after losing the first set, 6-1. She was unable to find her game or her composure and lost the second set.
At this year’s French Open final, Maria Sharapova won the first set against Simona Halep, lost the second, took a break and won the third.
Some see it as a way to slow down an opponent’s momentum. Venus and Serena Williams have reputations for taking bathroom breaks after warm-ups, creating a short delay before the match begins. Do they really have to use the toilet minutes after taking the court?
“I don’t think that the players would honestly say that they’re doing it on purpose to interfere with other players’ rhythm,” Djokovic said. “In the end of the day, it stays behind the doors in a way.”
Beyond gamesmanship, there might be other reasons for what seems to be a spike in trips to the bathroom. Players hydrate more than ever, including before and during a match, and some men’s Grand Slam matches last five sets and five hours. Still, women seem to use the breaks at least as often.
Logistics can be tricky. Tournaments are played across a dozen or more courts scattered over many acres. Players may not be familiar with where to find relief.
Wimbledon has a written plan for each court, given to all chair umpires, telling them where the nearest bathroom is. Officials declined to share it.
The plan at the United States Open is not so secret. “Courts 4-10 will be taken in the public bathrooms under Court 7,” the instructions read. In capital letters, it adds: “If Court 7 ladies restrooms blocked, please take the ladies to media entrance and go into media center and to the left.” Players on several other courts are directed to a bathroom under Court 11, through a door marked “court attendants.” A key is required, and the player must return the key to the attendant. “Make sure the player takes his/her credential,” the instructions read.
In all cases, tournament officials said, players must be accompanied to the bathroom, usually by a predetermined line judge.
There are concerns that players could do something illegal — receive coaching advice by someone along the way, watch video or trade text messages on a smartphone inside the stall, even inject themselves with an illegal substance.
Nowhere, however, are there rules or instructions for the one person who must sit through an entire match without the benefit of sweating out fluids: the chair umpire.
At Wimbledon in 2010, when John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played a match lasting more than 11 hours, divided over three days, they were lauded for their endurance and their ability to control their emotions — and bladders.
In the fading light of an impossibly long second day, Isner called a bathroom break at 58-58. Mahut followed. They each returned to win a service game and called it a night.
The chair umpire, Mohamed Lahyani, took no break.
“A few people have asked me how I managed to get through seven hours of tennis without using the toilet,” he said as part of a retrospective of the match by The Telegraph of London in 2011. “But when you are into the game and so focused, you don’t have time to think about food and drinks.”
Instead, as Isner and Mahut were off using the toilet — no one checked to make sure they actually did — the umpire sat in his chair, waiting amid the din of the crowd for his company to return.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/04/s...thers-use-bathroom-trips-to-regroup.html?_r=0
