Azarenka fires wake-up call in grunting row

World number one Victoria Azarenka hit back at more criticism of her on-court grunting, claiming it was as natural and uncontrollable as snoring.

The Belarusian turned her fire on a reporter after she had defeated Samantha Stosur 6-1, 6-2 in the Qatar Open final on Sunday which gave her a 17th successive victory in 2012.

But the Australian Open champion found herself once again under the spotlight for her trademark grunting.

“Do you snore?” she hit back at a journalist.

When he replied ‘yes’, Azarenka asked whether or not he could control it.

“No, I guess it’s natural,” said the reporter.

“So, it’s natural to you, right? So that’s natural to me, too, the way I play tennis. That’s it.

“It (the snoring) probably distracts your wife, if you have a wife, I don’t know, right?

“There you go.”

Azarenka insisted she has no time for critics of her noise levels, claiming that she has never been approached by other players to tone it down.

“Not one player has ever come up to me and said, ‘Hey, stop doing that’. I think there are other ways that people maybe distract me too. But I just don’t say it out loud. I just deal with it,” she said.