Victoria Azarenka is an experienced veteran who has been part of the WTA Tour for a very long time and she's happy about some changes she's seeing.
The former world number one is a very outspoken player who has served on the WTA Council for a number of years. Like many other players, she wants to see the sport grow and become even bigger. It will happen in time though there are some things that can be done to speed up things.
The Netflix TV show was praised by many as a good initiative to get new fans into the sport. Towards a similar goal, Azarenka was asked about what rule she would change if she had the power to do so. The things she would change would have the goal to make the sport grow even more.
Honestly, for me, the important part is, to grow our sport, is to be able to have a bit more predictability with the scheduling that it's going to be easier for people to follow.
So I feel like if that takes maybe to shorten the matches a little bit and have more, when people come, like, okay, I come to the match, it's going to be from hour and a half to two hours, and then the switch.
According to Azarenka having that in place would create more marketing opportunities and ultimately result in the growth of the sport. She's been involved in some of those hard-hitting discussions so she probably knows a thing or two more than your average player.
So I feel like that will bring a little bit more marketing opportunities, and it will help grow our sport. I know people say, well, lose the five sets and the marathon matches? It's a debatable thing, but from a business standpoint, from growing our sport, I feel like it could be a pretty good one.
One thing she did praise was the all-white rule change for women which now allows them to wear coloured underwear at the event as opposed to white ones. It's been a rule for a very long time and created a lot of anxiety for players.
I appreciate the nonfull-white rule for the girls. I think that was an important step. I think that's very thoughtful. I don't need to change that (smiling). I think the traditions are good, but we do want to innovate sometimes, so I think with the rule of scheduling, there will be couple of things that could be adjusted. For me, that would be that one.
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