Battle of the sexes tennis match today

[Hermyknee]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/articles/cz9419p8yvvo

Court modified. Each player will only receive one serve in an attempt to restrict Kyrgios' power and speed advantage. He thinks that is the biggest leveller. Sabalenka stating that "It's so obvious that the man is biologically stronger than the woman, but it's not about that.”

Not a big tennis fan but may watch.

Across so many sports, elite women train with men to be challenged in a way that they could not be by other women.
Spot on from Billie Jean about the difference in the two matches.

I appreciate the bloke in the studio and his fears for what it could do to women's tennis to show that the best woman tennis player in the world is slower and weaker than the number 617 men's player, but we can't predicate equal treatment on a pretence that men are not faster and cannot hit the ball a lot harder. They can. So what? We're entitled to equal treatment on the basis that we are equally human beings, that our type of body is as valid as theirs. People watch sport for the competition. Women can compete against other women.

Oh, great - apparently it was NK who insisted that AS had to lose her second serve as well. So obviously he got his way! 🙄

Embarrassing really. But this is typical of all sporting events that are hosted in the Middle East. Time-outs, excessive hype etc.

It's a match between two thoroughly unlikeable tennis players, but Krygios is more a pantomime villian, Sabalenka is just nasty.

I suppose it will be the most applause and support Sabalenka's received. Let's hope she doesn't piss over this runner's up trophy.

Absolute farce. I’m so surprised that the BBC paid for this rubbish and actually put out serious commentary.
I have no idea why S played this match. All it showed was that a middle ranking man will always beat a top woman. We all know this on FWR.

The lack of atmosphere or even interest by the crowd was just cringe worthy. I'm not sure that display did anything for the sport of tennis.

I have no idea why this was even a noteworthy contest.
Well, that's not true, obviously inflated sponsorship money and the added exposure that NK so desperately craves.

On what planet was this ever going to prove anything other than the fact that even a middling professional male player (in the seedings ratings) would obliterate a top seeded woman?

Serena Williams famously said that Andy Murray would beat her 6–0, 6–0 in about five or six minutes, adding that men’s and women’s tennis are “completely different sports.”

Venus said that male players ranked well outside the top 100 would beat her with ease.

Other than some sort of social media likes or affirmation, I have no idea why or how this is a worthwhile contest. It's as forgone as a fucking leopard fighting a tortoiseshell. "Adjustments" or not.

If the purpose however, was to confirm that men should not EVER compete with women in the sporting arena, then I fully support it.

Well, hello, and no shit, Sherlock, hold the presses: a mediocre male athlete can beat the top female athlete. Almost as if men are faster and stronger than women. Whodathunkit?

This event doesn't diminish women's sports at all. Dh watches many sports, and is always telling me how much more interesting the women's games are, as strategy and skill become more important than raw power.

Sabalenka's coach will be delighted with her. NK's a nightmare to play against even for men and she coped really well without being able to play her own game. Kudos to her. I really don't see how this is embarrassing for her - it was basically a training match against an opponent better than the men she usually trains with. I thought 6-3 6-3.

I do agree that all the stuff around it was utterly cringe, though.

I agree with your husband about women's tennis - especially women's/mixed doubles versus men's doubles. I like rallies and I like to be able to actually see the ball!

Unfortunately Sabalenka is about the raw power, just as it was with the Williams sisters. In the women's game it's a lot easier to dominate with power than it is in the men's game.

This year Sabalenka had a close match with Radacuna because she could absorb the power, and it has been the case with other who defeated her.

The whole spectacle left me cold. Complete absence of any atmosphere in the stadium and just the whole thing weird with the “adapted” court and single serve rule.

Obviously I know they did it for the money, but it all looked and felt so…..amateur and cheap? Like it was going on in my local sports centre or something. So odd and pointless 😵‍💫

God knows what the BBC paid to show it. Would have loved to have had Martina and Sharon on to talk about why we segregate sport by sex 😬

I wouldn’t say Kyrgios is mediocre.

Compared to most men he is certainly not mediocre. But I said athlete. What position is he, compared to the champion woman he was playing against? She wasn’t playing against a fellow world champion (or whatever her title would be, I don’t follow tennis).

I think it was the beginning of the warm ups for the new season starting with Melbourne in a few weeks.

They both probably got paid more than competing with the Australian lesser comps leading up to Melbourne. It was a ‘spectacle’ game but even then, as a spectacle game, the organisers tried something to make it more even.

Isn’t this what all those declaring ‘there must be a way to allow male and female athletes to compete’ say should be happening? Yet with all these handicapping elements NK still won.

Not because he is a ‘better’ tennis player. But because he is a male athlete with all the physical advantages that come with that.

This competition was an example of how to ‘make the competition fair’ with rules, changes to the format and to the equipment. The result? Predictable, but not reflective of the ‘better’ player winning.

Exactly - this is a great demonstration of why handicapping doesn't work. This was an exercise in seeing how much you would have to handicap a man to give a woman a chance - two serves to one would have helped - but the more you handicap, the further it moves away from being an actual competitive event.

I still think Sabalenka came out of it well, though.

Agreed, it's become a squabble about whether the degree of adjustment was fair or appropriate. It wasn't - would it have been if she had both serves? Maybe between this pairing, but this is between a quirky male player way down the rankings and an in form women's no.1.

And I'm not sure how much Kyrgios was deliberately playing to the crowd rather than going all out. The commentators seemed to think he had extra gears available if he wanted them.