Madrid Open: The Madrid Open’s organisers have apologised to the women’s doubles champions of this year’s competition after receiving criticism for preventing players from speaking at the award ceremony.
Jessica Pegula, the third-ranked singles player in the world, and Coco Gauff lost to Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-1, 6-4, and Pegula expressed disappointment with the organisers for not allowing the finalists to address the crowd on Sunday.
The tournament officials apologised to the competitors and spectators “who expect more of the Madrid Open” and enabled the men’s doubles champions to do so after their match the day before.
“The Mutua Madrid Open’s chief executive, Gerard Tsobanian, apologised on behalf of all the competitors and spectators who had high expectations for the competition.
“It was inappropriate to deny our women’s doubles champions the opportunity to thank their supporters after the match, and we have apologised in person to Victoria, Beatriz, Coco, and Jessica.”
It was “hard to explain” to her son Leo why she was unable to speak at the event, Azarenka had previously stated on Twitter.
“We are dedicated to enhancing our procedure going ahead and are reviewing our processes internally and with the WTA,” Tsobanian added.
“We erred, and we’ll never make the same error again.”
Pegula stated: “What happened in Madrid, it was really disappointing,” before to this week’s Italian Open. I sensed that something untoward was about to occur. Did I imagine that we wouldn’t be able to communicate? No.
“In my entire life, I’ve never heard of that. I have no idea what century everyone was in when they came to that conclusion or how they came to the conclusion that there would be no negative consequences to their choice.
“I never heard we wouldn’t be able to converse in my life. It was really depressing. If the prize was $10,000, you would speak.
“It was self-evident. When that happened, we were unhappy and informed that we couldn’t speak during the award presentation. It sort of supported a claim.”
“I have a lot of finals, so it’s not about that,” Gauff continued. More importantly, the idea behind it is to deny future ladies the chance so that it won’t happen to them again.
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