(VIDEO) Stefanos Tsitsipas left furious in Mallorca after argument with the umpire: "There's no chance this is playable. Zero percent"

Stefanos Tsitsipas is not afraid of an argument with an umpire once in a while. He was left red-faced after stopping the play to complain about the tennis balls. Even thought te umpire agreed with him, he still lost the point.

Tsitsipas is desperately trying to find some form on court after surging down the rankings. Close to dropping out of the top 90, he has work to do to get back to his best. That would not come at the Mallorca Championships after he lost 7-6, 6-3 to Ignacio Buse in the opening round.

In the very early stages of the match, Tsitsipas had a falling out with the umpire after a disagreement about the balls did not end favourably for the former world number three. Having stopped play to complain about the quality, Tsitsipas wandered over to the umpire to say his piece.

"What do you mean the point stands?" Tsitsipas stated in a confused manner, labelling the ball as 'unplayable.' "But it's impossible to play with this ball." The umpire responded. "I agree, but it's not broken."

"At least if we play the point, let's play the point," the Greek continued. "I'm not playing with the rule. It's just a soft ball. This is a soft ball. Look, look, look. Bring me the guy. There's no chance this is playable. Zero percent. Look at this. Look at this."

"Bring me the supervisor. I'll show him the ball and he'll tell me if it's playable or not," Tsitsipas said as the umpire got down from his chair to continue the discussion. "Do you think that if I thought the ball wasn't playable, I would have stopped the point?"

The umpire explained the predicament that he was in. "Listen, I need to go by the rules. I have rules to follow. The rule is that if the ball is soft—which I agree it is—it's not ideal, and that's why we replace it."

A disgruntled Tsitsipas was still not satisfied. "So you're basically giving him the point." Because he stopped the play, Tsitsipas would not get the point. "I have to award the point to him and replace the ball because it's not broken," the umpire explained. "I understand that you stopped, but just because you stopped doesn't mean I can give you the point. That's not how it works."

"If I stopped play every time a ball got soft, we'd be rallying with 100 different balls," the two-time Grand Slam finalist stated. "If I had stopped the point, we could have been rallying for five minutes here."

All this time, Buse was waiting with his hands on his hips listening and waiting for the green light to continue playing. Tsitsipas tried to call the supervisor again, but the umpire decided that the balls were okay and play eventually continued.

The first set went on serve despite a whole host of break points being created by both players. None of them were taken with a tiebreak being needed. Buse controlled proceedings, going 6-2 up before taking his third set point to gain a healthy lead.

The Hamburg Open champion then broke the Tsitsipas serve enroute to a 3-0 lead. Tsitsipas had one break opportunity to get back level but could not take it. He would lose the second set and the match, sparking more misery for him.

Tennis fans sensed a turning point at the Madrid Open when he was on the end of a painful defeat in the last-16 against the 2025 champion Casper Ruud. He missed two match points before later losing a third set tiebreak in a painful defeat.

Since then, he has won two matches in four tournaments. The event in Mallorca was his first taste of grass this year, and it has ended very quickly. Wimbledon is not one of his most favourable tournaments. He has never made it past the fourth round while grass is not considered his best surface by any means. In the live rankings, he sits 87th in the world. After losing in the first round last year, this could be an opportunity to get some points on the board.