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The media team of WTA came under fire for their use of AI to generate an image for Iga Swiatek's second-round clash against Alexandra Eala at the Madrid Open earlier this week. The women's tennis governing body has now cleared the air surrounding the issue, reasoning that the picture in question got "distorted" by an image-cropping tool.
Swiatek, who is defending her 2024 Madrid crown at Caja Magica this week, reached the third round of the 1000-level event in hard-fought fashion on Thursday (April 24), defeating Eala 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to avenge her Miami Open loss to the fast-rising Filipina. That said, the World No. 2's struggle to swat aside the 19-year-old wasn't the most contentious storyline from the match.
In WTA's preview of the above match, on its website, a cover image with the second seed and her challenger side-by-side appeared to have been generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Tennis fans on social media noticed the Florida-based company's mistake soon after, leading to widespread criticism of its media team's ethics.
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Ben Rothenberg, one of the more popular tennis journalists, pointed it out on his X handle on Thursday. In a bizarre turn of events, WTA came out with a suspect statement the following day, where it essentially didn't address the above accusations.
Instead, the women's governing body maintained that the image had "not rendered correctly" after having been put through some edits.
"An image was originally created in a tool that put together the 2 photos and to fit the size of that position on our website. Unfortunately, it did not render correctly and the cropping then distorted the photo," WTA wrote in its statement.
Iga Swiatek, meanwhile, will face 31st-seeded Linda Noskova in the third round of the Madrid Open later on Saturday (April 26). The 23-year-old will be eager to win her first WTA title since her fifth Major triumph at the French Open last year.
What was wrong with the image promoting Iga Swiatek's second-round match at 2025 Madrid Open?
For those unaware, the cover image that WTA came up with to hype Iga Swiatek and Alexandra Eala's third-round match in Madrid had various mistakes, which was a dead giveaway that AI was used.
Swiatek and Eala's hands looked bizarre in the picture. It was not a surprise considering AI hasn't yet figured out how to generate realistic-seeming hands.
Moreover, the names of Swiatek's main racket sponsor, Tecnifibre, and one of Eala's apparel sponsors, Globe, were mangled up in the image as well. The Nike logo on the Filipina's t-shirt was also disfigured. WTA has since updated the picture in question in its preview of the article.
