Six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek yesterday said she saw little point to the “Battle of the Sexes” match and that women’s tennis has nothing more to prove.
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and Australian Nick Kyrgios faced off in a highly publicized and controversial exhibition match in Dubai a week ago.
Kyrgios won 6-3, 6-3 with Sabalenka’s side of the court reduced in size by 9 percent in an attempt to restrict his power and speed advantage.
Photo: AFP
It bore little resemblance to the era-defining 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” encounter between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Back then, there was more at stake with the nascent women’s professional tour, set up by King, fighting for legitimacy and prize money.
“I haven’t watched because I don’t watch stuff like that,” world No. 2 Swiatek said in Sydney, where she opens her season at the United Cup.
“I think for sure it attracted a lot of attention. It was entertainment, but I wouldn’t say that had anything to do with social change or any important topics,” she said “I think the name was just the same as the one from the Billie Jean King match in ‘73. That’s it. There were no more similarities because I feel like women’s tennis stands on its own right now.”
“We have so many great athletes and great stories to present, we don’t necessarily need to compare to men’s tennis,” she added. “Honestly, there doesn’t need to be any competition.”
The Polish star, who is preparing for the Australian Open this month, the only Grand Slam she is yet to win, said the mixed-teams United Cup was a better way to celebrate men’s and women’s tennis.
“I think actually events like this one, United Cup, brings tennis together, and WTA fans and ATP fans can watch this event with so much excitement,” she said.
“Seeing also singles players that usually don’t have space to play mixed doubles together, playing these kind of matches, I think this is actually what makes our sport much more interesting and better,” she said.
Ties at the United Cup comprise one men’s and one women’s singles, and a mixed doubles, with group winners in each host city — Perth and Sydney — advancing to the quarter-finals along with the best runners-up.
Sabalenka this week defended playing Kyrgios, saying tennis needs to “keep it fresh, keep it new, keep it fun.”
“I think I would definitely do it again,” she said. “I love revenge and I don’t like to leave it the way it is.”
Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes on Tuesday night cruised to a repeat victory in the Iditarod, the about 1,609km sled dog race in Alaska. Holmes guided his dog team across the finish line in the old Gold Rush town of Nome, a Bering Sea coastal community. The race started on March 8 in Willow, a day after the ceremonial start in Anchorage. The course took dog teams and their mushers over two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and across the unpredictable Bering Sea ice. Holmes, a former cast member on the National Geographic reality show Life Below Zero, is the
Taiwanese boxer and Olympic gold medalist Lin Yu-ting has been approved to compete in the Asian Boxing Elite Championships, the Chinese Taipei Boxing Association (CTBA) said yesterday. The championships start on Saturday next week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Lin became entangled in a gender controversy, despite the International Olympic Committee confirming her eligibility to compete as a female boxer. In August last year, World Boxing mandated a new regulation that required all athletes to undergo a polymerase chain reaction. genetic test to determine their sex at birth and their eligibility. Since the introduction of the test, Lin has missed several
The Taoyuan Pauian Pilots on Sunday fell short in their bid for a first East Asia Super League (EASL) title after a 90-81 loss to Japan’s Utsunomiya Brex in Macau. The defeat marked the second straight year the defending P.League+ champions missed out on the EASL crown, but they remain the first team to reach back-to-back championship games in the league’s three-year history. The outcome was largely decided by long-range shooting. The Pilots struggled from beyond the arc, hitting just five of 20 attempts, while the Brex converted 19 three-pointers, shooting 46.3 percent from long range. Seven of the eight Brex players
ONE MORE CHANCE: While North Korea denied Taiwan in Australia, Taiwan, who last played in the World Cup in 1991, could still qualify via inter-confederation playoffs Taiwan yesterday lost 4-0 to a dominant North Korea in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup playoffs, closing off an avenue to qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Hong Song-ok scored a hat-trick in the match to determine the last of the confederation’s qualifiers from the tournament for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. With their victory over Taiwan, North Korea has qualified for the first time since a doping saga in 2011 led to their long absence from top-tier international tournaments. Angela Beard and Jaclyn Sawicki scored in a six-minute span to help the Philippines secure a World Cup spot with a
RSS