Andy Murray's bouncing balls take etiquette to extreme

Andy Murray blamed his Adidas shorts after spare balls felt out of his pocket (Getty Images)

New shorts please for Andy Murray! The Scottish star dropped two points during his match against Marcos Baghdatis at Wimbledon on Saturday, due to spare balls falling out of his pocket.

Afterwards Murray blamed the shorts rather than his pocket stuffing, presumably not something sponsors Adidas wanted to hear.

While the danger of a ball falling by your feet is a real one, others are gripped by less-tangible issues and ball etiquette, or superstition, is a big thing for today's players. From asking for three balls pre-serve and rejecting one (like Novak Djokovic), or counting the number of bounces before a serve (Serena Williams), a seemingly-increasing number of top players are obsessed by it.

It appears on the face of it to be a load of, er, balls. But as long as they keep winning, who's to tell them otherwise?