Victoria Azarenka has slammed the WTA's scheduling at the Cincinnati Open after delays make it difficult for players to know when they're going to play.

Former world No. 1 Azarenka defeated eleventh seed Barbora Krejcikova in her opening round at the Western & Southern Open in Ohio, winning in straight sets 6-3, 7-5.

Speaking in the press conference after the match, Azarenka used her voice as the highest-profile WTA Player Council member to express her frustrations at the scheduling decisions being made when faced with rain delays and other issues, stressing that the current methods are not working in the best interests of the players or the fans.

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Azarenka says her efforts have not been listened to

"I absolutely lost it yesterday because we work so hard in the Players Council and I just felt so frustrated, like I’m not making a difference and I put a lot of time, a lot of effort and I’m very direct.

"I try to be reasonable, I try to compromise, I try to create ideas and we are moving at the slowest pace to get things done. There are some things behind the scenes that we’re working on, but it’s time to get something concrete done," she said.

The Belarusian player went on to call the current state of scheduling 'ridiculous.'

"This is the only sport in the world where you don’t know when you’re going to play. It was 11 PM yesterday and I didn’t know when I’m going to play. This is unacceptable in any shape or form… 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."

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Comes after nightmare schedule at Canadian Open

Azarenka's comments come after some players were left exhausted from the nightmare schedule at the National Bank Canadian Open (Omnium Banque Nationale) in Montreal last week.

Many matches were postponed due to adverse weather conditions, causing some to be played late into the night. The most notable example was Elena Rybakina's quarter-final match against Daria Kasatkina, lasting three and a half hours and ending at 3 am. Afterwards, Rybakina said she was 'destroyed.'

Meanwhile, the semi-final match between Rybakina and Liudmila Samsonova ended up being delayed until the same day as the final, meaning the victor Samsonova had very little time to rest before facing Jessica Pegula for the title, and lost the match 6-1, 6-0.

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Due to rain, play is delayed. We will provide further updates when conditions begin to improve. #CincyTennis

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