Wu Yibing says he “didn’t appreciate” Alexander Zverev’s “behaviour” during their Shanghai Open match on Friday.

Top seed Zverev kickstarted his campaign at the Masters 1000 event with a tight 6-4, 7-6(4) victory against his Chinese opponent.

Following his victory, he said of the 26-year-old, “He hits every ball as hard as he can, so the match doesn’t depend on you too much apart from your serve.

“I thought I was serving ok, but everything else is in his hands, and he was playing well in the second set, so I am pleased to have got through in straight sets.”

It has since emerged that Wu was less complimentary about the US Open champion, who is closing in on landing the No 1 ranking for the first time.

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The former world No 54 has played two all-time greats this year in Novak Djokovic, where Wu lost in four tight sets at Wimbledon, and Carlos Alcaraz, which resulted in a straight set win for the Spaniard at the US Open.

Following his loss to Zverev, Wu spoke about facing the two-time major winner and former world No 1 Alcaraz. The China star said the Spaniard was a bigger challenge, while complaining about some of the German’s antics.

While he did praise the 6ft 6in player’s booming serve, he was quick to bring up Zverev’s apparent play-acting.

He said in his post-match press conference, “I definitely enjoyed the match with Alcaraz more because it was a bigger challenge. Today, the main challenge was just dealing with his first serve.

“He has such a strong serve and great first-strike ability. But there were some little incidents during the match: falling down, complaining about the lights, messing with the net tape.

“I feel like some of that really wasn’t necessary. Relatively speaking, it wasn’t such a ‘pure’ competition. Of course, he only did those things to break the rhythm and adjust his mood because I was putting pressure on him.

“Even though I didn’t get distracted, personally, I just don’t appreciate that kind of behaviour.”

At 5-5 in the second set, Zverev survived a late fall to beat Wu. The world No 2 had a break point on the Chinese player’s serve but stumbled and then fell to the floor. He brushed it off, though, and won in one hour and 36 minutes.

If Zverev sees these comments, he may not be best pleased.

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