The Madrid Open has apologised for not allowing the women's doubles players to address the crowd during the awards ceremony after last weekend's final.
While the finalists of the men's doubles and the men's and women's singles were given the chance to talk to spectators after their matches, winners Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia, and losing finalists Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, were oddly denied that customary honour after the final.
It was criticised by the players and bashed by fans on social media.
Gauff lamented that she and the other players were not able to thank their fans for their support.
Pegula said she had never seen anything like it.
"What happened in Madrid, it was really disappointing," Pegula said.
"Did I think we were not going to be able to speak? No. I've never heard of that in my life. I don't know what century everyone was living in when they made that decision."
Four days after the incident, tournament chief executive Gerard Tsobanian said that would never happen again.
"We offer our sincerest apologies to all the players and fans who expected more from the Madrid Open," Tsobanian was quoted as saying on the tournament's Twitter account.
"Not giving the chance to our finalists of women's doubles to speak to fans after the match was unacceptable."
Tsobanian said the event had apologised directly to all four players and that organisers were "working intensely, with the WTA, to revise our protocols".
"We made a mistake and it will never happen again," he said.
Tsobanian did not mention other issues that earned criticism.
Besides dressing ball girls in short skirts and small tops in the prominent men's matches, fans on social media questioned the disparity in the size of birthday cakes organisers gave to the tournament's top players.
Home favourite and successful title defender Carlos Alcaraz was presented with a gargantuan cake after his semifinal victory on Friday, while Aryna Sabalenka, the eventual women's champion, received a much smaller cake.
It attracted criticism from fans and grand slam champions Bianca Andreescu and Azarenka, who said the cakes were indicative of the treatment the WTA side of the draw receives in Madrid.
The tournament has run into controversy before, hosting Ilie Nastase at the trophy presentation in 2017, less than a month after he was suspended by the International Tennis Federation for verbally abusing British opponents during a Fed Cup tie and making racist remarks about Serena Williams's then-unborn baby.
During the Madrid tournament, the ATP-WTA event and its main sponsor ran a spot on Spanish television denouncing gender violence against women that included many of the sport's top players.
AP/ABC
