Of all of the characters on the ATP circuit, Kei Nishikori is usually one of the coolest customers.

The Japanese star is one of the best in the game at the moment and would probably have at least one Grand Slam to his name had he played in any other era.

He has also made a fairly reasonable start to 2017, following up a hard-fought defeat in the Australian Open to eventual winner Roger Federer by finishing as the runner-up in the Argentina Open last week.

However, he had a match to forget after travelling across South America to compete in the Rio Open in Brazil on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old crashed out of the first round at the hands of local favourite and world number 76 Thomaz Bellucci.

Despite being the top seed for the event, Nishikori suffered a shock defeat in straight sets and was visibly fuming at his own performance.

In fact, after losing the first set 6-4, Nishikori completely lost his temper and destroyed his racquet in the process.

As you can see in the video below, Bellucci's forehand winner didn't look that out of reach of the world no.5 but Nishikori made no attempt to return the ball.

He then quickly turned around and smashed his racquet on the court, sending it flying halfway towards the net.

The livid reaction is so unlike Nishikori! It looks even more epic in slow motion, though, (skip to 2:38).

It's a good job players carry around so many spare racquets with them these days as there wasn't much Nishikori could do with what was left of his original.

Of course, while most fans don't mind seeing the odd racquet smash to add a bit of drama, it isn't exactly the best example to set youngsters.

And it clearly didn't help Nishikori in the rest of the match as Belucci went on to win the second set 6-3 to dump out the pre-tournament favourite.