The exhibition match between Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios, labelled as a new "Battle of the Sexes", has been criticised a lot due to doing more harm than good to women's tennis, an argument said before the match and reinforced after the match, in which the man, Nick Kyrgios, who has barely played in the last three years due to injuries, defeated the WTA World No. 1.
The 28-year-old Belarusian player, after the match, said that "I honestly don't understand how people were able to find something negative in this event", and maintained that it was still a good tennis match.
"I think for the WTA I think I just showed that I was playing great tennis, it was an entertaining match. Yeah, he won this match, but I showed a great tennis. It was not like it was 6-0, 6-0. It was a great fight, it was interesting to watch. It brought more eyes on tennis. Legends were watching this match."
"The idea behind it is to help our sport grow and show tennis from a different side, that tennis events can be fun and we can make it almost as big as Grand Slam matches", Sabalenka added.
Kyrgios also defended Sabalenka and the whole match: "Let me just remind you that I'm one of 16 people that have ever beaten the 'Big Four' - Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafa Nadal have all lost to me" Kyrgios said. "She just proved she can go out there and compete against someone that's beaten the greatest of all time. There's nothing but positive that can be taken away from this."