Pegula and Gauff criticise the silencing of female tennis players at Madrid Open

The consequences of the Madrid Open’s decision to deny both women’s doubles finalists a speech during the trophy ceremony on Sunday rumbled on into Rome on Tuesday as Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula expressed frustration about tournament organisers silencing players.

Gauff and Pegula were defeated in the final by Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia. Pegula said she felt tension behind the scenes throughout a dramatic two weeks in Madrid and “had a feeling something would happen”. She did not anticipate the organisers refusing to allow the players to address the crowd.

“Did I think we were not going to be able to speak? No. I’ve never heard of that, like, in my life,” Pegula said at her pre-tournament press conference. “Even in a $10K challenger final you would speak. I don’t know what century everyone was living in when they made that decision or how they actually had a conversation and decided: ‘Wow, this is a great decision we’re going to do and there’s going to be no backlash against this.’”

Tennis tournaments at all levels conclude each event with a trophy ceremony and both finalists almost always give speeches. In the men’s doubles final a day earlier, both teams spoke. The women’s finalists did not know their speech had been cut until they were ushered to take photos with their trophies.

“The guy was like: ‘Now you go up on the podium and take one [photo] together.’ Then Vika [Azarenka] turned to us and said, ‘There’s no speeches.’ We were like, ‘What?’ She was like, ‘We’re not allowed to talk.’ We realised there were no microphone set up, there’s nothing. It was very rushed,” Pegula said.

The events on Sunday had been preceded by issues, serious and amusing, during the tournament. The Madrid Open organisers