World's best female tennis player responds to 'embarrassing' 'Battle of the Sexes' match
Tennis star Aryna Sabalenka addressed the controversy surrounding her ‘Battle of the Sexes’ exhibition match against Nick Kyrgios in wake of her defeat.
Their clash at Dubai's Coca-Cola Arena on Sunday (28 December) has seriously divided sports fans and a lot of people have been making a racket about it online.
Playing on a modified court with a one-serve limit, the pair went head-to-head for around 70 minutes before Kyrgios came out on top.
The Australian, who made the final at Wimbledon in 2022 but hasn't played competitively since March due to an injury, beat the Belarusian 6-3, 6-3 in straight sets.
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He praised the efforts of his opponent and described four-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka as a 'hell of a player', while admitting that it was a 'really tough match'.
"She just proved she can go out and compete with someone who has beaten the greatest of all time," Kyrgios said. "There's nothing but positives that can be taken away from this."
World number one Sabalenka, 27, said she 'put up a great fight' against her male counterpart, adding: "He was struggling, he got really tired.
"I think it was a great level, I made a lot of great shots, moved a lot to the net, drop shots. I really enjoyed the show."
Although the tennis players seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves, the 'Battle of the Sexes' has proved controversial in the eyes of a lot of sports fans and pundits.
Given the modified rules they played by and Sabalenka's side of the court being significantly smaller than her rival's, people don't seem to think that it was a level playing field - and dubbed the whole thing 'embarrassing'.
But it seems that the Belarusian star, who has just been voted the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) player of the year for the second season in a row, doesn't understand what everyone is getting so worked up about.
During a post-match press conference, Sabalenka responded to the criticism surrounding the Battle of the Sexes match.
Describing going up against Kyrgios as an 'amazing experience', she told reporters: "I’m really proud of myself that I was so brave to put myself out there against the guy and I was able to bring, I felt like, such a great tennis.
"It was so much fun and I feel like we showed the world that a tennis event can be entertainment - so fun, unpredictable and interesting.
"The only goal I had is make sure that whoever came to watch, whoever was watching on the TV, enjoyed it. And I really hope they did because that was my goal.
"I really like challenges and honestly physically playing against the guy, the amount of drop shots he made...I feel like I reached pretty much all of them, and that was great fitness for me."
She added that she would 'make sure to bring better tennis' if she ever faced off against her Aussie opponent again.
Sabalenka did seemingly admit that she found it more difficult to take on the 30-year-old in comparison to her female adversaries, saying: "It’s just his physical abilities are much higher - and he was stronger and faster with the acceleration and everything. But yeah, that was fun and great preparation for the season. I feel like physically I’m more than ready and I think tennis wise, I pull out a great tennis, which always matters."
When asked to address the 'negativity' surrounding the Battle of the Sexes event, the tennis player explained that she can't get her head around why it has proved so controversial.
Sabalenka responded: "I honestly...I don’t understand how people were able to find something negative in this event.
"I think for WTA, I think I just showed that...I mean I was playing great tennis. It was an entertaining match and yeah, he won this match, but I showed great tennis.
"It wasn’t like six love, six love. It was a great fight. It was interesting to watch. It brought more eyes on tennis.
"Legends were watching this match, pretty big people were messaging me wishing all the best and and telling me that they’re going to be watching from all different areas of life.
"So I feel like we just brought more attention to our sport and I don’t see how it can be bad. How you can talk negative about this?
"I think the idea behind it is to help our sport grow and show tennis from from a different side - that tennis events can be more fun, more entertaining and we can make it almost as big as a Grand Slam matches.
"Because I think the attention that we built up to this event was not less than the Grand Slam final."
Topics: Dubai, Sport, World News
Olivia Burke