{"id":81595,"date":"2021-06-07T02:19:32","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T02:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=81595"},"modified":"2021-06-07T03:02:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T03:02:06","slug":"star-unloads-on-roland-garros-over-equality-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=81595","title":{"rendered":"Star unloads on Roland Garros over 'equality' row"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka has criticised Roland Garros <\/a>organisers over what she describes as an equality problem at the tournament, following her fourth-round exit in Paris.<\/p>\n

The former world number one was ousted by Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, bringing to an end her best run at Roland Garros since she reached the semi-finals in 2013.<\/p>\n

The only place tennis fans can watch every Roland-Garros match is on Stan Sport. Start a seven day free trial of the Stan Sport add-on now!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

But things took an unexpected turn in her press-conference when she was prompted over the scheduling of night sessions, with six of the seven so far featuring men's matches.<\/p>\n

"What concerns me is when somebody from French Federation is continually trying to say there is equality, and only pointing out to prize money, which is true," said Azarenka.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

"Everything else, I wouldn't even agree for a little with that. And that's disappointing."<\/p>\n

The French Tennis Federation are currently engaged in a three-year partnership with Amazon Prime Video that runs until 2023, meaning the day's so-called top match is reserved for primetime audiences.<\/p>\n

But Azarenka took umbrage with the apparent imbalance between men's and women's matches selected for the late timeslot.<\/p>\n

That's an issue that hasn't been helped by the early exit of Ashleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka, and the absence of an injured Simona Halep.<\/p>\n

\"Serena\u00a0stunned\u00a0by\u00a0Rybakina\"<\/p>\n

"I think there is enough examples over the years where we've heard remarks towards women, where we've seen two women's semi-final matches playing on the outside courts," She said.<\/p>\n

"I think sometimes you need to hold some people accountable for some of those things and not continuously point out to the obvious of prize money.<\/p>\n

"I just think that in general sometimes things here are made a bit too complicated.<\/p>\n

"It's just honestly a bit frustrating every time you're trying to deal with the organisation here, it's becoming 'pas possible'. Everything you hear is 'pas possible'."<\/p>\n

It's the second tiff in as many years between Azarenka and Roland Garros.<\/p>\n

Last year Azarenka was left fuming at being left to "sit like a duck", walking off court after complaining that it was "too cold" to play – as the 2020 tournament was delayed to late September due to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka has criticised Roland Garros organisers over what she describes as an equality problem at the tournament, following her fourth-round […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81597,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81595\/revisions\/81597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}