Daria Kasatkina has slammed former tennis player Kamil Patel for telling players to stop complaining by referencing her late-night clash against Elena Rybakina at the National Bank Canadian Open (Omnium Banque Nationale) in Montreal last week.

World No. 13 Kasatkina is one of many players who have been affected by scheduling decisions in recent weeks and months. Last week, she faced world No. 4 Rybakina in her quarter-final match at the WTA 1000 event in Canada. However, following bad weather conditions, the match was postponed and ended up going on until almost 3 am.

The match became a gruelling three-set battle that lasted three and a half hours, with Rybakina eventually winning 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(8). Afterward, the Kazakhstani player said she was 'destroyed'.

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"I feel destroyed because of the scheduling and the whole situation. I'm not really happy about it, but it is what it is," Rybakina said.

Since then, several players including world No. 1 Iga Swiatek and Victoria Azarenka have come forward to share their frustration and concerns over the WTA's scheduling choices.

Patel criticizes players for 'whining'

Former Mauritian tennis player Patel took to Twitter to post his thoughts on the matter, saying players should just get on with playing matches. The 44-year-old was responding to a tweet quoting Azarenka at this week's Cincinnati Open as she criticized the scheduling.

"This is the only sport in the world where you don’t know when you’re going to play.. I look at it as a player, and it’s ridiculous. I look at it as a fan, and I don’t know which matches I’m going to go watch because I have no clue, unless you’re very fanatical, but we need to appeal to a bigger crowd to watch our sport," the Belarusian player said.

In response, Patel tweeted:

"Can players stop whining and just play?"

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Kasatkina slams comment with sarcasm

After seeing Patel's comment, Kasatkina replied to it with sarcasm in order to highlight the difficulty of playing matches in adherence to current scheduling choices.

"See you at work at 3am and no whining pls!!!" she replied.

Fans voiced their agreement with the 26-year-old:

"tell him queen!!!!" wrote one.

"Agreed. I was on grounds until midnight last night and didn’t feel ready to go back until 2 today [I don't know] how you could play after that," added another.

"I watched the whole match and it was outrageous that you had to play that late. I was so proud of you for how strong you were," continued a third.

Daria Kasatkina

@DKasatkina

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See you at work at 3am🥰 and no whining pls!!!

Kamil Patel

@kamiltpatel

Can players stop whining and just play?

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