Andy Murray left fuming after being denied a toilet break during 4am match at the Australian Open

Andy Murray was left fuming after he was denied a toilet break during his Australian Open match against Thanasi Kokkinakis in the early hours of Friday (January 20) morning.

The British star and his Australian counterpart put on arguably the best match of the tournament so far and one of the best in recent tennis memory.

The second-round match went all the way to the fifth set with two tie-break sets coming in the second and third.

However, the Brit managed to take home the win with a three sets to two victory in a thrilling encounter.

However, by the nature of the back-and-forth encounter and the late-night start time the pair found themselves fighting it out in the early hours of the morning.

As the clock approached 3 am (AEDT), Murray had just forced the game into the fifth set when the urge to go became apparent.

After four and a bit hours of play, you’re bound to need a bit of a reprieve.

However, the 35-year-old’s request for a bathroom break was denied by the umpire after being told he’d already used his one bathroom break earlier on in the match.

And fairly enough, Murray blew his gasket at the ruling, considering the game went almost six hours in total.

I don’t know about you guys, but I often need more than one toilet break in six hours.

He made sure that chair umpire Eva Asderaki-Moore knew, in no uncertain terms, that the Australian Open rules were ‘disrespectful’ and a ‘joke’.

He told the umpire: “Do you know something? I respect the rules.

“But it’s a joke. It is a joke and you know it as well.

“It’s disrespectful. It’s so disrespectful to the players that the tournament has us out here until three, f***ing four in the morning and we aren’t allowed to go to the toilet and take a piss.

“It’s a joke, it’s disrespectful.”

Back at the 2021 US Open the former Grand Slam champion complained about the number of breaks his opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas had during their matchup.

Then in late 2021, the ATP Tour announced they would be implementing new rules surrounding toilet breaks in the 2022 season.

This means players would be limited to one per match for a maximum of three minutes.

But perhaps they need to be a bit more flexible if games go for multiple hours as this one did.

It was the longest match of Andy Murray’s career finishing at 4:06 am local time in Melbourne.