The Australian Open has become embroiled in a sexism row after Pam Shriver suggested they were putting women’s matches on early in the day so that men had the prime-time slots.

All three of Emma Raducanu’s matches took place first thing in Melbourne, with increasing concern that is becoming a pattern across the board.

And five-time Wimbledon doubles champion Shriver has highlighted the discrepancy in response to the publication of Sunday’s order of play, in which two women’s matches (Aryna Sabalenka versus Mirra Andreeva and Coco Gauff versus Belinda Bencic) are first on Rod Laver Arena before the men’s matches between Jack Draper and Carlos Alcaraz, and Novak Djokovic versus Jiri Lehecka.

That is also the case on Margaret Court Arena, where Paula Badosa faces Olga Danilovic before Tommy Paul plays Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

The same is true of John Cain Arena, where Donna Vekic plays Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova ahead of Alexander Zverev’s game with Ugo Humbert.

That caused Shriver to post on social media: “What is going on with AO [Australian Open] scheduling? Is it a race to get women’s matches out of the way as early as possible on all courts?”

That is a concern which is understood to be widely shared, with the Australian and French Open known for putting women on earlier in the day. Raducanu’s games have at least been well attended, although there was widespread surprise her third-round tie with Iga Swiatek – won convincingly by the Pole 6-1, 6-0 – was not later in the day.

Scheduling all the leading male players for a similar time has also caused issues in this tournament, with Monday’s night session seeing Djokovic, Alcaraz and Nick Kyrgios all play concurrently – leading to empty seats in some arenas and difficult choices for broadcasters.

There were also concerns raised by broadcasters with Daniil Medvedev not beginning his match against Learner Tien on day five until 10pm. With the game going to five sets, Tien eventually triumphed at 2.55am.