Fifty-second ranked Japanese player Yoshihito Nishioka was docked a game by the umpire after smashing several balls into the stands in a dummy spit for the ages.

Going up against the fifth seeded Hubert Hurkacz at the Cincinnati Open, Noshioka lost his top in the third set after taking the first before giving up the second via tie-break to the Polish star.

Midway through the final frame, after Hurkacz secured a break to go up 3-1, Nishioka sent one ball into the stands, before calling for another ball from the ball-girl and launching another.

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“Code violation, unsportsmanlike conduct. Point penalty, Mr Nishioka,” chair umpire Aurelie Tourte announced.

The very next game, with Hurkacz up 30-0 and the match slipping away, Nishioka smacked another ball out of the arena in frustration, forcing the chair umpire to take a game off the Japanese player.

“Code violation, ball abuse. Game penalty, Nishioka,” Tourte announced once more.

“What is he doing? He’s completely lost his mind. Self-destruction if you like. I mean, he knows the rules, he knows exactly what’s going to happen,” one commentator said.

From there, it was clear Nishioka had checked out of the game mentally with Hurkacz going on to win 3-6, 7-6, 6-1 to set up a clash against Italian Flavio Cobolli.

“I was already frustrated before the tiebreak,” Nishioka said after the match. “In the third set when he broke me, and I felt like everything went to him and nothing to me.

“I played OK, but everything went to him, so that’s where the frustration was coming from.”

He added: “I’m very sorry to my fans: I showed my best tennis until the second set when I couldn’t. Hopefully, there’ll be some luck to me at the US Open. I think my feel in tennis is better and better each day. I have to take care of my body a little bit and get ready for the US Open. I think I can play good tennis there.”

Elsewhere, defending champion Coco Gauff lost her opening clash in Cincinnati, falling to Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.