It is very rare that one of the nice guys of the tennis world loses his calm, but Carlos Alcaraz could not hold back his anger towards the chair umpire on Rod Laver Arena.
Tempers boiled over early in Alcaraz's much-anticipated matchup against British No.1 Jack Draper as the Spaniard was left baffled by the use of the 25 service shot clock.
Alcaraz was struggling to find consistency with his serve in the opening set, making five double faults as his 5-2 lead over Draper evaporated.
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Alcaraz has previously expressed his dislike for the 25 second serve shot clock.
In a break of play Alcaraz voiced his concerns with the chair umpire Fergus Murphy.
"It is crazy. I finished the game, I finished the point, I went to the towel," Alcaraz said.
Carlos Alcaraz has stern words with chair umpire Fergus Murphy. Nine
"I didn't take too much time. Just 15 seconds. It's crazy. I don't have time to go to the towel… you know I'm ready.
"You were the only one. In four matches, you are the only one to say no after the game."
Lleyton Hewitt supported Alcaraz's concerns, noting the young gun had yet to ask for balls when the timer had started in the previous point.
"Normally the chair umpire will have a little bit of leniency when starting, especially after a game when the crowd claps," Hewitt said on Nine.
"He'd gone to get his towel and straight after that even started for 10 seconds before he'd asked for the balls.
"That exchange went on for a fair amount of time. The sit down, you get pretty rushed out there. You don't get that much time to yourself to gather your thoughts and he was pretty much talking to Fergus Murphy the whole time during the sit down."
Carlos Alcaraz plays a backhand against Jack Draper of Great Britain. Getty
Alcaraz's conversation with Murphy continued for the entirety of the break but it did not seem to continue to take a significant toll on his performance.
Alcaraz went on to take the first set 7-5 against a resilient Draper before cruising to victory in the second set 6-1.
But the Spaniard's match came to a sudden end as his opponent was forced to medically retire with a hip injury.
Draper received attention for the injury in the break between the first and second set, and was in visible discomfort upon return.
He then retired after Alcaraz secured set point.
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"This is not the way that I want to get through to the next round. I'm just happy to play another quarter-final here in Australia," Alcaraz said post-match.
"But really sorry for Jack. He doesn't deserve to get injured. He couldn't prepare the start of the season well."
Alcaraz will now enter his 11th quarter-final in a grand slam tournament, the most of an player in history under the age of 21.
His opponent will be the winner of Novak Djokovic and Jiri Lehecka.
