One of the premier events of the year on the WTA tour, the Qatar Open kick started on Sunday with several top-tier players taking to the center court with hopes of putting up a great performance in the event. One such star was former world no.1 Victoria Azarenka. Azarenka, who has had a moderate 2021 season is looking to shine well this year.

The Belarusian drew Yulia Putintseva in her opening round. As opening rounds sometimes go, Azarenka faced a stiff challenge from her opponent as she had to fight back from a set down to register a hard-fought victory.

Victoria Azarenka complains to the umpire over Putintseva’s behavior at WTA Qatar Open 2022

While the match was entertaining in itself in terms of quality, a little bit of drama added more flavor to the whole match as Putintseva could be seen repeatedly getting frustrated with her game and began throwing racquets much to the dislike of Azarenka.

Putintseva‘s frustration came from the fact that she was leading 4-0 in the third set before Azarenka began her ascendance and leveled the match 4-4. At 5-4, the Kazakhstan player called for a trainer and what followed was the racquet smashes.

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A clearly frustrated Azarenka was seen complaining to the chair umpire over Putintseva calling out the trainer.

“Before my serve, she can do that. What’s the problem? She has to wait for me to serve. She threw her racquet, like, 7 times. Four, four is okay.”

However, it all ended well for the former world no.1 as she was able to break Putintseva’s serve and went on to win the match by winning the third set, 7-5. Clearly, both the players were frustrated over what happened during the encounter and the same was evident during the handshake at the net.

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After the match got over, Azarenka expressed her displeasure over the series of events that took place towards the tail end of the third set.

“There was way too much stuff in this match. Unnecessary stuff as well”. 

Anyway, the Belarusian progressed to the second round where she will meet America’s Madison Brengle. Victoria Azarenka managed to put up a decent performance so far this year as she reached the quarter-finals at Adelaide International and managed to reach pre-quarters at the ‘happy slam’. where she was defeated by Barbora Krejcikova.

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