The Madrid Open tennis tournament has come under fire after being accused of "sexist violence" as the ball girl's outfits were determined to be too revealing.
The tournament has assigned all female ball crews to men's matches played on the grandstand court with the uniforms featuring short, pleated skirts and crop tops.
As reported by the Independent, the outfits which were described as "feminizing" and "revealing" were changed after Spain’s secretary of state for equality, Soledad Murillo said that the outfits "fomented clear discrimination towards women".
Pilar Calvino, a spokesperson for the Spanish Association for Women in Professional Sport said: "It’s a way of feminizing girls with respect to boys who don’t dress in the same way. Ultimately, it’s a form of sexist violence that is so widespread that people don’t even notice it."
It should be noted that younger ball boys and girls working on outside courts wore more traditional attire as you'd expect to see at a tennis tournament.
The outfits were changed in time for the men's singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jan-Lennard Struff, with the ball girls wearing three-quarter-length skirts.
This isn't the first time that the Madrid Open has come under fire for its attitude towards women, in 2004 they hired models to be ball girls.
Adding onto the recent sexism controversy, the players in the women's doubles final were not offered the chance to speak to the crowd following the match, as is often the custom after a final.
Victoria Azarenka played in the final alongside her teammate Beatriz Haddad Maia as they beat the American duo Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula.
Following the match, Azarenka tweeted: "Hard to explain to [six-year-old son] Leo that mommy isn’t able to say hello to him at the trophy ceremony."
Gauff also took to Twitter to express her distaste at what occurred, saying: "Wasn’t given the chance to speak after the final today," with her teammate responding with a zipped lips emoji.
Last year's Madrid Women's Singles winner, Ons Jabeur said: "So unfortunate that you were not given a chance to address the crowd and your opponents. This is sad and unacceptable."
The controversy didn't stop there, as the winners of both the Men's Singles and Women's Singles tournaments were presented with a cake following their wins, and the difference in size was quite notable.
Alcaraz got a three-tier cake following his victory, whereas Aryna Sabalenka received a single-tier cake - and she didn't even get it presented to her on the court.
The tournament's director Feliciano Lopez defended the difference in cakes as well as saying he was shocked at the reaction between the cake sizes.
Nodding to a cake of similar size given to Danish player Holger Rune, Lopez said: "Carlos had just won his match to reach the final. He was playing on center court. The tournament is played in Spain, even though it is an international event. PS: I hope Rune wasn’t also upset."
It would seem that tennis wasn't the main event at this year's Madrid Open.
