Sexism mars Next Gen ATP Finals draw ceremony

There they were: eight of the most promising young players in professional men's tennis, in casual wear and street shoes, standing alongside just as many women, themselves clad in various states of dress from evening gowns to fishnet hosiery. These men represented the future, and the women accompanying them had been unfittingly thrust into decades past.

It made for an unfortunate Sunday in Milan. In one of the year's most egregious, what-in-the-world moments, the ATP NextGen Finals organizers perpetrated among the tennis world–and the global society at large–an unseemly, small-minded display of misogyny and awkwardness.

This woeful parading-out of scantily clad, flirtatious women–each either holding or tagged, even on the upper thigh of at least one, with an "A" or "B", for the group name–could not have been more ill-conceived.

Backlash was swift on social media. Truth-to-power justice is having a moment–more than a moment: note the vocal response to the public undoings of the allegedly scheming Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, to women in France petitioning their president to get a grip on male sexual aggression.

When this cynical show was over, these young men had been corralled into two groups of four, their A and B clusters for this week's tournament, which starts on Tuesday.

This is the next-generation leaderboard of men's tennis–most of them visibly uncomfortable with the situation–and the concept was no fault of their own. For the organizers, it was a tale-as-old-as-time failure of ideation and execution. A joint apology was released by the ATP and Red Bull (the event sponsor).

The statement reads that their "execution of the proceedings was in poor taste and unacceptable" and that they "deeply regret this and will ensure that there is no repeat of anything like it in the future."

These women deserved far better, as did their up-and-coming male counterparts. The actual tennis cannot begin soon enough.

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.