Former doubles world No 1 Rennae Stubbs believes Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios\u2019 Battle of the Sexes match has done a lot of damage for women\u2019s sport as \u201cthere are idiots in the world that now want to have a go at female athletes\u201d.<\/p>\n
The controversial match between reigning WTA No 1 Sabalenka and world No 671 Kyrgios<\/a> took place in Dubai the past weekend, and it was the latter who emerged with a 6-, 6-3 victory with the encounter drawing criticism not only from the world of tennis, but the wider sporting community.<\/p>\n Despite the players and their management group stating it was a good advert for tennis<\/a>, the match failed to live up to the pre-match hype and it was heavily criticised with former British No 1 Greg Rusedski stating \u201cI just don\u2019t think we need this for our sport\u201d.<\/p>\n Former world No 11 Alize Cornet<\/a> questioned why four-time Grand Slam winner Sabalenka \u201caccepted\u201d to play the match under modified rules \u2013 the Belarusian\u2019s side of the court was reduced by 9% while each player only had one serve.<\/p>\n The Frenchwoman added \u201cit\u2019s really about diminishing and undervaluing Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s skills\u201d.<\/p>\n Four-time women\u2019s doubles Grand Slam champion Stubbs was also unimpressed by the \u201cmoney grab\u201d as she raised concerns about the damage it has done.<\/p>\n \u201cDidn\u2019t watch 1 point of #BOS But judging by my 5 min on social media, the nonsense being written by people about it is the reason it was a event. Misogynists out in droves, people going after the trans community in women\u2019s sports (fyi look up Renee Richards) & for what? $$$$,\u201d she wrote on X.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s just call it was it was, shall we. It was a money grab for both players & their management group. Entertaining? U decide. Important? No. No top woman can compete with a good male player, it\u2019s NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE! But $$$ got got! So i hope it was worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n 2026 Australian Open: Who has received a wildcard and will Nick Kyrgios be awarded one?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Brisbane International draw, prize money and points on offer to Sabalenka, Anisimova, Rybakina, Keys<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The Australian believes the \u201cidiots\u201d will now be out in force to question women\u2019s athletes.<\/p>\n Stubbs added: \u201cIt\u2019s just annoying that there are idiots in the world that now want to have a go at female athletes for being \u2018less then\u2019 which is NONSENSE!!!<\/p>\n \u201cThey train as hard, compete as hard & deserve RESPECT for how good they are! So if you\u2019re going to be a misogynist, you\u2019re the problem.\u201d\ufe0f<\/p>\n But Sabalenka insisted after the encounter that there were a lot of reason to be positive as it brought more attention to tennnis.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t understand how people can find negatives in this event,\u201d she said. \u201cRegarding the WTA, I think I showed that I was able to play at a high level, it was an entertaining match; yes, he won, but it was a competitive duel, not a 6-0, 6-0.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a contested, fun, interesting match to watch, it has drawn many eyes to this sport, gathered several legends, many important people sent me messages saying they would be watching the match\u2026 so I think we have brought more attention to our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios \u2018money grab\u2019 exhibition gets scathing verdict \u2013 \u2018I hope the money was worth it\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former doubles world No 1 Rennae Stubbs believes Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios\u2019 Battle of the Sexes match has done a lot of damage for women\u2019s sport as \u201cthere are idiots in the world that now want to have a go at female athletes\u201d. The controversial match between reigning WTA No 1 Sabalenka and world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Want more from Tennis365? 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