Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek says tennis didn’t want the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka as the ladies’s sport “stands by itself”.
Ladies’s primary Sabalenka and male participant Kyrgios confronted off in a extremely publicised exhibition in Dubai per week in the past.
Kyrgios gained the match – performed on a modified court docket designed to supply a stage enjoying area – in straight units.
However Swiatek says tennis has come a good distance for the reason that authentic ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973 which highlighted the ladies’s sport combating for legitimacy and prize cash.
“I have not watched [Sabalenka v Kyrgios] as a result of I do not watch stuff like that,” the world quantity two stated.
“I feel for positive it attracted loads of consideration. It was leisure, however I would not say that had something to do with social change or any vital subjects.
“I feel the title was simply the identical because the one from the Billie Jean King match in ’73. That is it. There have been no extra similarities as a result of I really feel like girls’s tennis stands by itself proper now.
“We now have so many nice athletes and nice tales to current, we do not essentially want to match to males’s tennis.
“Truthfully, there does not must be any competitors.”
Swiatek stated the mixed-team United Cup – which bought underneath method in Australia on Friday – is a greater strategy to have fun males’s and ladies’s tennis.
Ties on the United Cup comprise of 1 males’s and one girls’s singles match and a blended doubles.
“Occasions like this one, United Cup, brings tennis collectively, and WTA followers and ATP followers can watch this occasion with a lot pleasure,” she stated.
“Seeing additionally singles gamers that normally do not have area to play blended doubles collectively, enjoying these type of matches, I feel that is really what makes our sport rather more fascinating and higher.”
Emma Raducanu and Billy Harris are representing Nice Britain on the match and play their first sport in opposition to Japan in Perth on Sunday.
