Nick Kyrgios' effort is under question again after an umpire suggested a point in the second set of his Shanghai Masters defeat was "really borderline".
The Australian, who at times appeared largely disinterested in his three-set loss to American qualifier Bradley Klahn, fired back telling chair umpire Damien Dumusois he "didn't care" for his opinion and "you have no right to tell me that it's poor".
Three games later, Kyrgios smashed an ace and turned to Dumusois to ask "was that borderline poor?" before the French official told him "that's enough. I don't want to talk about that any more".
The 23-year-old rattled off another three aces to close out the game, pointing at the official each time.
"When I get aced: very poor, like it's poor behaviour. But when they get aced: it's fine right, they walk side to side, it's fine," Kyrgios ranted to his box.
He later cautioned the umpire: "You know I literally could just go to the ATP office after this and say I just felt put down from your comment and you'd be in trouble, right?
"I'm not going to do it, but I'm just saying."
Kyrgios has a chequered history at the Shanghai Masters after quitting mid-match against Steve Johnson in the first round last year and being accused of tanking in a second-round loss to Mischa Zverev in 2016.
He was fined for both incidents.
This most recent Shanghai meltdown comes after Swedish umpire Mohamed Lahyani was suspended for giving the Aussie a mid-match pep talk in his second-round US Open win.
With his low ranking it will take a major turnaround for Kyrgios to pick up a seeding for the Australian Open in January.
AAP
