The BBC were forced to offer multiple apologies during their broadcasting of Aryna Sabalenka’s Battle of the Sexes showdown with Nick Kyrgios – but fans still vented their fury over both broadcasting issues and the decision to host the contest on social media.
The event had been mired in controversy since Kyrgios first announced that he would be facing off with the women’s world No 1 in September.
Its detractors cited the sham of organising a clash between a men’s player currently ranked 671st in the world standings and persistently injured, and the woman at the summit of the ATP rankings, as well as Kyrgios’ own checkered past as a critic of women’s tennis on social media.
News that the BBC had purchased the rights and programmed it on their flagship BBC One channel prompted further criticism, and on Sunday afternoon as the match was being played, social media users were still incensed by the decision.
‘It’s genuinely dispiriting that our national broadcaster, the BBC, is showing Battle of the Sexes tennis match (Sabalenka vs Kyrgios),’ one user wrote. ‘An event which cheapens the sport and fundamentally betrays the legacy of Billie Jean King.’
‘Why on earth is BBC Sport showing the match between Sabalenka & Kyrgios?’ another added.
‘Why don’t you make more effort to show the matches tennis fans would prefer to watch?’
A third added: ‘The BBC is disgraceful. Billie Jean King was a legend, Kyrgios vs Sabalenka is a joke’.
King herself, who faced off with retired player turned ‘chauvinist pig’ Bobby Riggs in 1973, was keen to distance the event from her own victory, which proved landmark in prompting cultural change around how women’s tennis was perceived.
The 12-time Grand Slam-winner had said before the match that ‘the only similarity is that one is a boy and one is a girl. That’s it.
‘Everything else, no. Ours was about social change; culturally, where were in 1973. This is not.’
There was neither social change nor pure entertainment on the menu at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai on Sunday, with a visibly unfit Kyrgios sweating and junk-balling his way to a 6-3, 6-3 victory against the four-time Grand Slam champion in just over an hour and a half.
Sabalenka attempted to inject some levity into the proceedings with a showy entrance from the top of the stadium wearing a glittering trench coat set to the sound of ‘Eye of the Tiger’, and a dance break where she performed the Macarena, but failed to truly enliven a leaden audience.
But even predictable tennis – albeit played on an unequal court, with Sabalenka’s side nine per cent smaller to reflect data showing women’s speed in comparison to men’s – proved hard to watch, with the pictures lost multiple times during the broadcast.
With the commentary pairing of former British No 1 Annabel Croft and journalist Andrew Cotter based in the UK rather than the UAE, both were forced to try and keep up with the score without the visuals of the match at times.
Problems throughout the second set also saw the sound audible as the picture froze, with the BBC offering audiences their apologies via Cotter, and messages on the screen.
‘Utterly rubbish pictures from the BBC during this debacle,’ one incensed commenter wrote on social media site X. ‘Is this what we pay £15 a month for?
‘#battleofthesexes #Sabalenka #Kyrgios #Tennis #abolishthelicencefee’.
Another agreed: ‘BBC finally get the exclusive rights to show a big sporting event and they keep losing the picture.
‘Welcome back to the 1970s.’
The BBC also received backlash from those representing the viewpoint some critics of the match-up had feared most, with some suggesting that the competition wasn’t worthy of the rights sale.
‘The farce that women players get equal prize money for less work expsed (sic)’, A user wrote. ‘Now provably far lower quality tennis too with the female No. 1 vs male No. 500+ with a ruleset rigged in favour of Sabalenka and she still lots (sic).
‘Ludicrous and appalled that BBC paid for the rights.’
For his part, Kyrgios believed that the event had been a success and that it had been ‘all the world was talking about for six months’.
‘Considering I took away one of her strengths, her first serve, she’s an incredible athlete,’ Kyrgios said in his post-match remarks.
‘The gap is closer (than the scoreline) – I’m not surprised. It could have gone either way. I’m not even joking.’
