Stefanos Tsitsipas has shared a humorous encounter with a New York taxi driver who asked if he knew Stefanos Tsitsipas — then told him to pass on a message about the Greek star’s infamous bathroom breaks.
The exchange came after Tsitsipas’ US Open campaign ended in the round of 16, where No. 8 seed Ben Shelton defeated the Greek 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. Hours later, Greece’s best-known tennis player posted the cab ride that has since gone viral.
Stefanos Tsitsipas during the 2026 US Open in New York, where his fourth-round run ended against Ben Shelton.
Writing on X, Tsitsipas said:
“Taxi driver in New York asked me if I knew Stefanos Tsitsipas.
I said, ‘We’re very close.’
He said, ‘Good. Tell him to stop taking bathroom breaks like he’s searching for Narnia.’
I pulled my hood up and pretended I was a tourist from Oslo.”
The Narnia line landed because Tsitsipas has long been associated with lengthy bathroom breaks during matches — a habit that has irritated opponents and become a running joke among fans.
The issue boiled over at the 2021 US Open, when Andy Murray sat through an eight-minute Tsitsipas bathroom break before a fifth set and compared it to Jeff Bezos’ trip to space.
“Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitsipas twice as long to go to the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bezos to fly into space. Interesting,” Murray said at the time.
Murray argued the pauses allowed Tsitsipas to cool down and disrupted the flow of the match. The ATP later restricted men’s bathroom breaks to one per match, lasting three minutes or less.
None of that stopped a New York cabbie from delivering the line of the tournament to the man himself. Tsitsipas, rather than revealing his identity, pulled up his hood and played the Oslo tourist.
The Greek star’s Flushing Meadows run is over. Shelton advances to a quarter-final against Carlos Alcaraz. Tsitsipas heads home with a straight-sets defeat — and a viral New York story that only a Greek tennis star could tell on himself.
