Nick Kyrgios' effort is under the microscope again after an umpire suggested a point during his first-round Shanghai Masters defeat was "really borderline".
The Australian, who at times appeared largely disinterested in his 4-6 6-4 6-3 loss to American qualifier Bradley Klahn, engaged in a heated argument with chair umpire Damien Dumusois over the comment.
"Nick - last point was really borderline," Dumusois said after the world no.104 aced Kyrgios to make it 2-1 in the second set.
The world no.38 fired back, telling the French official he "didn't care" and adding "you have no right to tell me that it's poor".
The verbal sparring continued at the next change of ends as Kyrgios queried whether he meant "borderline good or bad" and was told "you know exactly what I meant, Nick. There's a way of playing tennis on a tennis court".
Kyrgios then smashed an ace and turned to Dumusois to sarcastically ask "was that borderline poor?" and was rebuked.
"That's enough. I don't want to talk about that any more," Dumusois said.
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 incredulously ranted to his box.
Kyrgios 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 could literally just say I couldn't play after that because I just felt put down. You realise that, right? I'm not going to do it, but I'm just saying."
After the three-set loss, he left the court using his mobile phone.
It comes after Swedish umpire Mohamed Lahyani was suspended for giving Kyrgios 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.
