The Madrid Open apologized on Thursday for not permitting the ladies’s doubles gamers to deal with the gang throughout the awards ceremony after final weekend’s remaining.
While the finalists of the lads’s doubles and males’s and girls’s singles got the prospect to speak to spectators following their matches, winners Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia and shedding finalists Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula had been oddly denied that customary honor after Sunday’s remaining.
The circumstance was criticized by the gamers and bashed by followers on social media.
Four days after the incident, event CEO Gerard Tsobanian stated it could by no means occur once more.
“We offer our sincerest apologies to all the players and fans who expected more from the Madrid Open,” Tsobanian was quoted as saying on the event’s Twitter account.
“Not giving the chance to our finalists of women’s doubles to speak to fans after the match was unacceptable.”
After the ultimate, Gauff lamented that she and the opposite gamers weren’t capable of thank their followers for his or her help.
Pegula stated she had by no means seen something prefer it.
“What happened in Madrid, it was really disappointing,” Pegula stated. “Did I think we were not going to be able to speak? No. I’ve never heard of that in my life. I don’t know what century everyone was living in when they made that decision.”
Tsobanian said the event had apologized directly to all four players and that organizers were “working intensely, with the WTA, to revise our protocols.”
“We made a mistake and it will never happen again,” he stated.
Tsobanian didn’t point out different points that earned criticism.
Besides dressing ballgirls briefly skirts and small tops within the distinguished males’s matches, followers on social media questioned the disparity within the dimension of birthday muffins organizers gave to the event’s high gamers.
Home favourite and profitable title defender Carlos Alcaraz was offered with a gargantuan cake after his semifinal victory on Friday, whereas Aryna Sabalenka, the eventual girls’s champion, acquired a a lot smaller cake.
The ATP-WTA occasion and its primary sponsor ran a spot on Spanish tv throughout the event denouncing gender violence towards girls that included lots of the sport’s high gamers.