Reilly Opelka's bird incident delays play in Melbourne 

Melbourne's No. 2 seed Reilly Opelka had a rough go in his 2022 opener against Maxime Cressy. Not only did he lose a close, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), battle to his compatriot, but he literally got pooped on. That's correct, bird poop landed directly on the American's hat in the second set and it left him scrambling trying to find another one.

"Sorry I just got shit on," Opelka said as he walked over to his bench. However, the umpire was slightly confused with the situation and Opelka continued to explain the frustrating incident as he grabbed a hat, "I can't see, a bird shit on me. What do you want me to do?"

If you're wondering why Opelka didn't opt to just play without one. Well, with his long mop hairstyle that could be really hard to do.

The chair umpire rejected the new hat, stating that the logo was too big and he would have to find another hat. He suggested Opelka's coach give him the hat he was wearing. The two would go back and forth trying to find a solution and Opelka would even give Diego the ballboy's hat a try, but that didn't work either. His head didn't quite fit into Diego's Australian Open cap.

The American gave up and grabbed the rejected hat again and walked back onto the court. As Opelka laughed about the odd predicament the match official walked onto the court to give him another official tournament hat to try on.

"Do you want me to take this off and swap it with one in the changing room?," the match official asked Opelka. To which he quickly replied, "yeah" and after winning the game to go up 5-4 in the second set his fresh hat was handed off to him.

The lesson of the day apparently is bring a spare hat in your racquet bag, because you never know if a bird will relieve itself. All in all it was an extremely tough day at the office for the No. 26 who fell just short to an in-form vintage Cressy at the ATP 250.