Umpire accuses Kyrgios of 'borderline' tanking in shock loss

Nick Kyrgios is under fire again after an umpire questioned his ‘borderline’ effort at the Shanghai Masters.

The Australian, who at times appeared largely disinterested in his three-set loss to American qualifier Bradley Klahn on Monday fired back by telling chair umpire Damien Dumusois he “didn’t care” for his opinion and “you have no right to tell me that it’s poor”.

Three games later, Kyrgios smashed an ace and turned to Dumusois to ask “was that borderline poor?” before the French official told him “that’s enough. I don’t want to talk about that any more”.

Ranked 104 in the world, Klahn presented few problems for Kyrgios in the first set and he looked on course to take out the match.

But a sloppy service game down 4-5 cost Kyrgios the set and he unravelled from there amidst a stretch of five lost games.

Down 3-0 in the decider the 23 year-old couldn’t recover and spent much of the changeovers engaging with the umpire or hitting balls against the back hoarding.

He left the court using his mobile phone.

Now ranked 38, it will take a major turnaround for Kyrgios to pick up a seeding for next year’s Australian Open.

Ebden comes back from the brink

There was better news for compatriot Matthew Ebden who enjoyed a three-set win over rising American Frances Tiafoe.

Ebden battled back after losing the opening set to take out the match 3-6 6-4 6-3.

It has left him with a tough second round encounter against world No.7 Dominic Thiem.

Alex de Minaur starts his campaign on Tuesday against Vasek Pospisil.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, Borna Coric and Sam Querrey were among the other winners on Monday, 14th seed Milos Raonic the biggest surprise loser, going down to Mackenzie McDonald 6-3 5-7 6-3.