Melbourne: Down two sets and a break, Marcos Baghdatis sat in his chair at the changeover and smashed his racquet seven times until it was almost unrecognizable. He wasn't finished yet.
Baghdatis calmly gave the mangled racket to a ballboy, plucked a new one out of his bag and cracked that as well. The next two, he didn't even bother taking out of the plastic wrapping.
In all, the fiery Cypriot broke four racquets in a row during an Australian Open meltdown that lasted less than a minute and earned him a $1,250 fine on Thursday.
His frustration released, Baghdatis went on to win the third set but lost the late-night match on Wednesday 7-6 (3), 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 to Stanislas Wawrinka.
The racquet rage was still the talk of Melbourne Park on Thursday.
"I've never done that. That's impressive, wow," Serena Williams said. "I actually used to break a lot of rackets on the court. I sometimes break them in practice, just not in a match anymore."
"Four, it's a lot. My father told me all the time, 'If you break the racket, I break you,'' said Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Baghdatis, who could have been fined up to $2000 for his outburst, joined a list of players who have also been penalised for breaking their racquets at the tournament, including John Isner, Alexandr Dolgopolov and Denis Istomin.
Donald Young, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Gilles Simon have been given $1,500 fines for audible obscenities.
Baghdatis wasn't alone in losing his cool on Wednesday.
After losing the fourth set of his marathon match against Isner, David Nalbandian threw his racket into a wall at Margaret Court Arena and was lucky it didn't rebound and hit a nearby linesperson.
A ballboy picked up the racket and gave it back, only for the unhappy Argentine to fling it into the crowd.
That wasn't the end of it, either. Nalbandian also angrily smashed his racquet after netting a volley on match point and later verbally hit out at chair umpire Kader Nouni, who refused his request for a Hawk-eye challenge at break point at 8-8 in the fifth set because he had waited too long.
"I mean, it's ridiculous playing this kind of tournament with this kind of umpires, I mean, can you be that stupid to do that in that moment,'' Nalbandian questioned?
Nalbandian and Baghdatis still have some way to go before they can match former No 1-ranked Marat Safin for racquet-smashing prowess.
The 2005 Australian Open champion once estimated that he had destroyed about 700 in his 12-year career.
"Luckily I get them for free," said Safin, who recently won a seat in Russia's lower house of Parliament.
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