A TENNIS player was incredibly disqualified from a tournament and stripped of his prize money… for having a shower.
Nicolas Moreno De Alboran made his Grand Slam main-draw debut at the US Open this year.
Nicolas Moreno De Alboran was brutally kicked out of a tennis tournament for showeringCredit: Getty
The New Yorker came through three rounds of qualifying in his home city before losing in straight sets to Lorenzo Sonego in round one.
That earned the 26-year-old Madrid-born star a cool $81,500 in prize money and a career-high No122 in the world rankings.
But Moreno De Alboron suffered a very different fate in 2022 when he was competing at the Sevilla Challenger.
The tennis ace took on Federico Delbonis in the first round after successfully coming through qualifying in southern Spain.
Delbonis won the opening set but Moreno De Alboron fought back to take the second after a gruelling 81 minutes on a tie-break.
Moreno De Alboron took himself off for a restroom break and washed off the sand that had gotten into his underwear and was creating a bleeding rash.
But when a towel didn’t do the trick, he used the shower to clean himself – and it proved a costly mistake with an eagle-eyed Delbonis ratting him out and ultimately getting him booted out.
And that prompted the ATP to strip him of any money, leaving him to stump up the cost of his expenses.
Moreno De Alboron wrote on Instagram: “During the second set, I fell over three or four times. On one of them sand got inside my underwear.
“I had to play like that for 30 minutes and it was giving me a rash that started bleeding after a while. When I won the second set, I went to the toilet to change (you get five minutes).
“When I saw that I couldn’t get the sand off with the towel since I was sweating so much. I decided to use the shower handle to only rinse the sand off.
“My opponent told the umpire that came to the bathroom with us that I had taken a shower (which you are not allowed to do). The tournament referee then proceeded to default me from the tournament.
“On top of that, I will not receive the points or prize money from the tournament and will have to pay my hotel room for the days that I was playing in the tournament.
“This has nothing to do with the tournament or its organisation which was incredible all week long.”
Rules regarding toilet breaks have changed in recent years following the controversial Stefanos Tsitsipas’ antics.
Andy Murray accused the Greek of cheating when he took a lengthy time off court during the 2021 US Open.
Players are now limited to one trip of three minutes to the loo and an extra two minutes for a change of clothes.
But that left Murray and Thanasi Kookkinakis struggling at the Australian Open as their nearly-six-hour contest finished at 4.05am – and they were banned from heading off court again.
The American made his Grand Slam debut at the 2023 US OpenCredit: Getty
