Nick Kyrgios brings up his record against Big Four while praising Aryna Sabalenka
Nick Kyrgios didn’t waste an opportunity to highlight his record against the Big Four while discussing the negativity towards his controversial Battle of the Sexes match against Aryna Sabalenka.
Four-time Grand Slam winner Sabalenka took on former world No 13 Kyrgios in Dubai and before a ball was hit, many questioned why the reigning women’s world No 1 would agree to play in the exhibition match as it would only lead to negative talk about women’s sport.
It was always going to be a lose-lose situation for Sabalenka with Kyrgios ranked outside the top 600 due to his inactivity in recent years and the Australian came away with a 6-3, 6-3 victory on Sunday.
The encounter – which was played under modified rules as the Belarusian’s side of the court was smaller while both players had only one serve – didn’t live up to the pre-match hype and the criticism, especially of Sabalenka, didn’t end once it was over.
During the post-match press conference, Kyrgios was asked about the negativity with a journalist stating: “You know, it seems to be almost from the female perspective for Aryna, not so much negativity towards you, but more towards her for why would she accept a match? Why would this be good for the WTA? Is this good for her reputation? Just your take on that and how you would address that in terms of the negativity?”
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In his reply, the 30-year-old started off by praising Sabalenka as he said: “I mean she loves a challenge. She’s a competitor and she would be the first person to tell you to pretty much p*** off if you brought any of that into the equation.
“She doesn’t care. She is one of the best players in the world. She strongly believes that and she is.”
And then he drifted towards his record against Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray.
Kyrgios won three of his nine matches against Nadal, has a 2-1 record against Djokovic, was 1-6 against Federer and 1-6 against Murray.
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The Australian continued: “She just proved, let me just remind you, I’m one of 16 people that have ever beaten the Big Four in the world. Andy Murray, Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal have all lost to me.
“And she just proved that she can go out there and compete against someone who’s beaten the greatest of all time. There’s nothing but positive that can be taken away from this. And I had to work for it. I had to sweat. I had to play. I had to run. Like, it was not easy. Nothing came easy. So, let’s put that narrative out there rather than all the negativity.
“The thing is, everyone who was negative watched. That’s the funny thing about it as well. Like it’s this has been the most talked about event probably in sport in the last six months.
“If we looked about how many interactions we had on social media, in the news, whatever it is. So anyone who was negative and watched, they also just love it.
“They just don’t want to love it, but they do love it. I’m sure the next time we do it, and if I’m a part of it and if she’s a part of it, I’m sure it will be now a cultural movement that will happen more often and I think it’s a step in the right direction.”
