WIMBLEDON, LONDON -- John McEnroe may have some competition for the best Wimbledon rant of all time.
Viktor Troicki railed against "the worst umpire ever" as he launched a verbal tirade during his 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 second-round defeat to Albert Ramos-Vinolas at the All England Club.
Not since McEnroe shouted the immortal line "You cannot be serious!" at umpire Edward James for ruling a serve out during the 1981 Championships has Wimbledon been treated to such an entertaining on-court outburst from a player.
At 30-30 when he was 5-3 down in the fifth set, Troicki thought a serve from his opponent was out but Italian chair umpire Damiano Torella overruled the decision, giving Spaniard Ramos-Vinolas match point.
Troicki, who saw an 18-month ban for failing to provide a blood sample cut to 12 months in 2013, then completely lost his cool in front of a stunned crowd on Court 17.
The Serbian grabbed the ball and started screaming there was "no white" as he examined it for chalk. He walked towards the umpire, held the ball up in his face and shouted, "Look at it!"
He then launched the ball skywards, calling Torella "the worst umpire ever in the world".
"What are you doing?" the 25th-seeded Troicki asked, going back to his chair. "Did you see the ball? You're so bad!"
The umpire stuck with his decision, though, and Troicki returned to his side of the court, before Ramos-Vinolas won the next point to ensure victory. Troicki shook hands with his opponent at the net but he wasn't finished with the umpire.
"Do you know what you did?" he asked repeatedly. "You're horrible!" He shouted "b*******" for good measure and went straight from the court into the referees' office.
Troicki, who could now face a fine, later called on Wimbledon to install the hawk-eye system on all courts.
"He should also be fined if you ask me. I behaved well, I didn't do anything until that moment," said Troicki. "The guy on the chair, he doesn't have experience of such a surface and such a match. I have never seen him in my whole career. That's just crazy.
"He called one overrule in five sets, which is horrible. There was so many bad calls, not just against me but against my opponent. At the end it was crazy what happened. I felt the guy's just way too bad to be on the court where there is no hawk-eye.
"I'm not saying I lost the match because of him, but it was just frustrating having someone like that in the important points of the match and having such decisions where he has no experience or no knowledge about anything.
"He is just sitting there calling the score, not trying to watch the ball. If you hit the line, you see the fluff or the chalk on the ball and there was nothing. It was such an obvious call.
"I'm not saying he cost me the match but he cost me an important point which could have changed the outcome of the match. I was just boiling at that stage. I couldn't talk normally. I felt like that last game was too much and I overreacted.
"I just got p----- at the end of the match which is normal I think. Everyone would get p----- on such a point and such circumstances. It was tough to handle such a situation."
Troicki's rant also harked back to Jeff Tarango's infamous 1995 meltdown at Wimbledon, when the American defaulted his match against Alexander Mronz after branding chair umpire Bruno Rebeuh "the most corrupt official in the game" for overruling a line call.
Tarango's wife also slapped the umpire twice in the face. He was subsequently banned from the 1996 Championships.
Maybe there was just something in the water in SW19 on Thursday -- Gilles Simon earlier threatening to sue the umpire during his defeat to Grigor Dimitrov.