Wozniacki blasts WTA Tour for forcing her to play in the Rogers Cup tournament without proper preparation
'If you don't, you get huge money fines. They wouldn't allow me to play in a small tournament in this half of the year, which is crazy'
Fourth seed Caroline Wozniacki dropped her opening match at the Rogers Cup on Wednesday but did not go quietly, blasting the WTA Tour for forcing her to play in the tournament without proper preparation.
Playing with a heavily strapped left calf, the Dane squandered a 5-2 first set lead before tumbling out of the tournament after a 7-5, 7-5 loss to Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic, who saved her best shots for the Tour.
"I haven't practiced for a week because I wanted to make sure that I was 100 per cent healthy," said the former world No 1.
"I went out there and actually my leg and my back are feeling pretty good, so that's good.
"But today was the first time that I've practiced for a week. I want to be able to play up to my best tennis, and you're not going to do that if you don't practice.
"But the rules if you're a top-10 player that this was my commitment tournament, you're forced to play.
"If you don't, you get huge money fines. You get zero points to your ranking. Plus they wouldn't allow me to play small tournament in this half of the year, which is crazy."
As premier mandatory event top players can only decline playing in the tournament with a legitimate injury or risk heavy sanctions.
Wozniacki, the 2010 Canadian champion, opened the North American hardcourt swing last week in Stanford where she also dropped her opening match to Varvara Lepchenko.
"I've been on the players council for a long time and I'm not anymore because these rules are things that players complain about all the time, but we can't do anything about it," said Wozniacki.
"I think the WTA is all about we want the players healthy, we want them to play at their best level at every tournament and we want to make it tough for them.
"That's good, but the fact that they're pushing you to play whenever, if you are not feeling 100 per cent is not okay."
