Picture Credit: Twitter
Madrid Open, a tennis tournament for 1000 ranking points, played under the Grand Slam format for the first-time ever in a two-week period, was under a cloud of controversies from beginning till the end. The biggest one among all was the choice to have models wearing crop tops and miniskirts appear as ball girls for men’s matches instead of having regular ball kids do the job at the Manolo Santana Stadium.
This move sparked outrage among many in the tennis world, with some people accusing the tournament Director Feliciano Lopez and the entire organising team of misogyny. It was because the male models working as ball boys in women’s matches were given normal dresses to wear.
So, during the Madrid Open men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jan-Lennard Struff, they tried to repair their shredded reputations by changing the outfit for ball girls to sleeveless crop tops and loose fit capris.
Earlier, the Secretary of State for Equality in Spain, Soledad Murillo had some choice words for the decision taken by the Madrid Open organising team to introduce the model as ball girls, in which he said, “(This) contributes to fomenting clear discrimination towards women who appear as simple objects of decoration and amusement.”
Meanwhile, on May 7 (Sunday), the men’s singles final of the Madrid Open was won by Carlos Alcaraz by 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 against the German Jan-Lennard Struff. This was the 10th ATP Masters 1000 title for the Spaniard, who has just turned 20 this past Friday.
Furthermore, in the women’s singles final on Saturday, Aryna Sabalenka defeated Iga Swiatek of Poland 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. She won her fifth WTA 1000 title just a day after celebrating her 25th birthday.
