'Battle of the Sexes' was completely unwatchable

An unfit Nick Kyrgios defeated the women's No 1 Aryna Sabalenka and the immediate calls for a rematch should worry her rivals on the WTA Tour

- Jamie Braidwood

Let’s start with something positive. It is somewhat of a testament to the strength of Aryna Sabalenka’s character, as a four-time grand slam champion and the dominant world No 1 in women’s tennis, that immediately after losing 6-3 6-3 to a shuffling, clearly unfit Nick Kyrgios, she asked for the opportunity to try again. But no, please no. We do not need to see another rendition of this circus, promoted as a "Battle of the Sexes".

Beyond the ugly court and the TV feed from Dubai that broke down and produced a garbled picture, the spectacle was unwatchable, too.

Sabalenka deserved better than Kyrgios, the former Wimbledon finalist who reached a career-high of No 13, gawping when she blasted a powerful winner down the line. She should have had nothing to prove after an excellent season where she made the finals of three of the four grand slams and won the US Open. But in accepting this match-up, organised by the Evolve agency that represents both players, she has opened the door for cynics to diminish the women’s game. Worryingly, she has perhaps set the stage for her fellow professionals to be dragged into future exhibitions of this nature in the name of “entertainment”.

That, after all, is what Sabalenka and Kyrgios said they were playing for. Billie Jean King risked the progress of not only women’s sports but the women’s rights movement in the United States when she accepted the challenge of the self-proclaimed male chauvinist Bobby Riggs in 1973. The only similarity here, King said 52 years on, was man versus woman.