The tournament director of the Madrid Open has insisted his event always tries to be fair to everybody after a top player accused officials of giving preferential treatment to men.
Earlier this week world No.9 Ons Jabeur told reporters that there is still a way to go for gender equality to be achieved in tennis despite it being a leader in women’s sports. The two-time Wimbledon finalist singled out Madrid, as well as the Italian Open, as two tournaments she feels ‘need to respect women more.’ She referred to her personal experiences and the current TV coverage of women’s matches.
“The way they treat women here and men, they’re completely different. Maybe people from outside, they don’t see it. I’m definitely one of the people that I want to speak up,” said Jabeur.
“Here in Spain, I would love to go to the hotel and open the TV and see a woman’s tennis match.
“I haven’t seen once one tennis match of a woman. Obviously, I understand there are a lot of Spanish (male players) playing, but asking for one match? Even the female Spanish (players) they are not even showing.
“For me it’s really frustrating to see that. How can you inspire young girls without showing any match in that?”
It is not the first time the Madrid Open has been accused of preferential treatment. 12 months ago a series of controversies triggered backlash with the most significant of those being the decision to not allow any speeches from the women’s doubles champions and runners-up. Even though there was in the men’s tournament. In another incident during the 2023 event, Aryna Sabalenka and Carolos Alcaraz received birthday cakes but Sabalenka’s was considerably smaller.
“Last year, I have to accept that there is things that – for example, that issue with the doubles finals, we apologised and we moved on and everyone’s happy,” tournament director Feliciano Lopez told Sky Sports on Wednesday.
“We have meetings with WTA players, ATP players, always willing to help and I think this is the most important thing that we move on and there’s a lot of things that we can still do in the future.”
Lopez, who won seven ATP titles and reached a ranking high of No.12 during his playing career, defended his event against criticism from Jabeur by describing her remarks as ‘unfair.’ Pointing out that Madrid issues equal prize money which the WTA aims to implement at every combined 1000 and 500 event by 2027.
“I think we did a few things last year that, I mean, shouldn’t happen, I have to say. And we learned from our mistakes,” he continued.
“But I have to say that we were the same tournament to pay the same prize money to women and men. And so I don’t think it’s fair that someone might think that we are not treating men and women equally,”
“We’re doing a great job I think at that matter so I understand the frustration on certain things because there are a lot of things that can happen during the tournament with transportation, with practice sessions. But we try to be equal, we try to be fair all the time. So I think we have to move on and try to be fair to everyone.”
Lopez has been in charge of the Madrid Open since 2019. He also currently serves as the tournament director of the Davis Cup Finals.
