At the end of a week of constant controversy at the US Open, the Cypriot player Marcos Baghdatis blamed poor officiating for creating unnecessary tensions in Andy Murray’s second-round match.

This was the latest postscript to an ongoing saga. Murray’s four-set defeat at the hands of Fernando Verdasco on Wednesday had reached a new level of intensity after Murray accused Verdasco of speaking to his coaching team during the 10-minute heat-break.

Verdasco’s defence was that he had actually been chatting to Baghdatis and his coach, and that the conversation only happened because they were sitting in adjacent ice-baths. So it was interesting to hear Baghdatis’s version of events.

“I was in the ice bath,” he explained. “I think both of them are right in a way. Verdasco was not controlled by anybody so his coach came. They didn’t talk about the match, I didn’t hear that, just gave him some shoes and helped him change.

“But Andy is right. The officials were not doing their jobs. If you put a rule you have to follow it. Today we heard that within this ten minutes you are allowed to strap, restrap your ankles and stuff, so it’s all over the place and I think it’s either dangerous to play or it’s not.”