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Toronto - 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.
Wozniacki, playing with a heavily strapped left calf, squandered a 5-2 first set lead before tumbling out of the tournament with a 7-5, 7-5 loss to Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic, saved her best shots for the Tour.
"I haven't practiced for a week because I wanted to make sure that I was 100 percent 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 the Dane 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 percent is not okay."
Results on Wednesday from the third day of the WTA Rogers Cup (x denotes seed):
Second round
Andrea Petkovic (GER x16) bt Heather Watson (GBR) 6-4, 6-3
Roberta Vinci (ITA) bt Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (CRO) 6-3, 6-3
Daria Gavrilova (RUS) bt Lucie Safarova (CZE x7) 4-6, 7-5, 7-5
Sabine Lisicki (GER) bt Barbora Zahlavova Strycova (CZE) 7-6 (7/3), 6-4
Polona Hercog (SLO) bt Ekaterina Makarova (RUS x11) 6-2, 6-7 (2/7), 7-5
Ana Ivanovic (SRB x5) bt Olga Govortsova (BLR) 6-4, 7-6 (7/4)
Lesya Tsurenko (UKR) bt Garbine Muguruza (ESP x8) 7-5, 6-1
Carina Witthoeft (GER) bt Alison Riske (USA) 6-4, 5-7, 6-3
Sara Errani (ITA x15) bt Madison Brengle (USA) 6-3, 2-6, 6-3
Alize Cornet (FRA) bt Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) 6-3, 6-2
Simona Halep (ROM x2) bt Jelena Jankovic (SRB) 6-3, 6-4
Victoria Azarenka (BLR) bt Petra Kvitova (CZE x3) 6-2, 6-3
Agnieszka Radwanska (POL x6) bt Julia Grges (GER) 7-5, 6-3
Belinda Bencic (SUI) bt Caroline Wozniacki (DEN x4) 7-5, 7-5
Angelique Kerber (GER x13) bt Monica Puig (PUR) 6-2, 6-3
