Kyrgios cops bizarre pre-match code violation

Nick Kyrgios was slapped with a code violation before his match with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga even started.

Kyrgios made a red-hot start to his third round match on Friday night, breaking Tsonga's serve in just the third game before winning the first set in a tiebreaker.

KING KYRGIOS: Nick storms past Tsonga into fourth round

However the match got off to a bizarre start when Kyrgios received a code violation before the first point.

Players have exactly one minute to take the court after their warm-ups are complete, and Kyrgios failed to do so as he was caught short while changing his shirt.

The chair umpire hit Kyrgios with a time violation, leaving the young Aussie pretty perplexed.

"It's a new rule we've seen this year, they're trying to contain the warm-ups," Jim Courier said in commentary.

In previous years Kyrgios might have let the weird moment get to him, but the young Aussie simply shrugged it off with a smile and got on with the job.

"He's been dealing with adversity a lot better," Courier said.

The strange scenes continued a bit of a trend at this year's Australian Open, with Coco Vandeweghe and Alexander Dolgolopolov also involved in weird run-ins with officials.

Vandeweghe also copped a time violation when she refused to take the court until she'd eaten a banana, with Dolgopolov staged a protest when he was docked a point because his shoe fell off mid-point.

Kyrgios went on to prevailed in a big-serving battle of wills, downing the Frenchman in four sets to progress to the round of 16.

The Australian's clutch efforts during tiebreaks proved decisive in a 7-6 (7-5) 4-6 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5) victory, earned in three hours and 17 minutes.

The win sets up a blockbuster fourth-round clash on Sunday night with Bulgarian third seed Grigor Dimitrov.

with AAP