The Spanish tennis players expressed their complaint and disappointment after the decision of the Mutua Madrid Open, a Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 category tournament, which takes place from April 26 to May 8, for not having attended to the requests of the national players (only one in the men's box, none in the women's).
The organizers announced that the 'wild cards' would be for
Andy Murray, Carlos Gimeno, Lucas Pouille and Jack Draper
, in the men's draw, and for
Naomi Osaka, Linda Fruhvirtova, Mónica Puig, Marta Kostyuk and Qinwen Zheng
, in the women's draw.
This decision has provoked complaints from several of the Spanish tennis players, who described, in a statement on social networks, that they found it "surprising, as well as very frustrating, that the largest tennis event in Spain shows such support little (or null) to the Spanish tennis players in the invitations granted, especially in the main draws".
"We do not understand that the promoting company and the owners of the tournament have found the criteria to give these invitations reasonable. We
understand that some of them give them at their own discretion, but not that in all of them their commercial interests prevail and totally getting out of the trajectory followed in previous years
. We have many tennis players who have been left at the gates of being able to participate and who have been ignored in their requests to receive an invitation", they lamented.
In this sense, they recalled that other tournaments of "the same category" show "immensely greater support" for local players, giving the example of Rome, which has given "all" its first invitations to Italian tennis players.
"We fully trust that the main sponsors of the tournament, including the Madrid City Council, Mutua Madrileña and Spanish companies (as well as the Spanish sports federations and mostly national spectators) want to support national tennis and
invest in this tournament with the intention of helping our sport and hoping to see the greatest possible Spanish presence
, so we imagine that they share our disappointment and we hope that they express it equally", they added.
This note was not signed by anyone in particular, but
players such as Fernando Verdasco, Carlos Taberner, Bernabé Zapata, Pablo Andújar, Roberto Carballés, Nuria Parrizas and Aliona Bolsova posted it on their social networks
.
In addition, the current number three in the world,
Paula Badosa
, expressed her disappointment as well.
"It's a huge opportunity for everyone, and it's a shame that the only tournament we have at such a level, this happens... We have to give our tennis players opportunities to continue growing...", she stressed in her official account of 'Twitter'.
"Very sad to see things like this for Spanish tennis. When on top of that there is a lot of potential...
A year ago I entered the tournament for a 'wild card' and I did one of the best tournaments of my career
. A tournament that I will never forget thanks to an invitation", added the Catalan, who was a semifinalist in 2021.
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