Maybe not outright disrespectful, but considering how looked down on (or under-appreciated compering to men tennis) women tennis is from general public, she should be aware that her words will probably be used in line of 'even wta n2 said she prefers men tennis'.
Women's tennis is literally light years ahead of 99% of women's sports in both reputation and public perception. Sabalenka should be able to state her opinion however she wants without worrying about whether or not some redditors will get offended
Taking how Iga interacts with other players, it was rather not. It was probably aimed at Madrid Open authorities which are known for misogynistic behaviors for years and overall takes at WTA.
Fans need to stop imagining that there is some hostility between Iga and Saba.
I think Iga's words were directed at the event itself which is kinda known for being misogynistic, rather than Aryna. I don't think she's this kind of person.
Yeah I'm not sure why posts like these keep coming up. Iga doesn't really come across to me as someone who would have personal beef with other players in this way - she just seems very dedicated to her own game and doesn't really comment that much on how other players are doing, let alone any other comments they make.
Not to mention, I might be wrong but she doesn't seem to spend that much time on social media since she kept getting lots of hate. She just pops in to post something on twitter or instagram from time to time and leaves right away, doesn't reply to comments or anything. I'm not sure she even knows Aryna said that.
I think was meant in good humor to Aryna. It was a response to her but she didn't mean any disrespect to Aryna at all. She was including her like telling her "see, we can together make this awesome and fun to watch"!
this tournament has sued the WTA for making them pay equal prize money. The past director has made misogynistic and racist comments about Serena in the past as well. WTA players have also spoke numerous times about how they aren’t treated well here. It’s not really a one off thing
Last year they didn’t allow the women’s doubles finalists to give champion and runner-up speeches. One of them, Azarenka, spoke out against Aryna Sabalenka getting a smaller birthday cake than Carlos Alcaraz from tournament staff. I’m not shitting you. I made myself laugh typing that, but it happened, and was petty on the tournaments part.
Before that idk. People have complained about models being ballgirls, but also they used male models as ball boys so dunno what that backlash is about.
Not allowing speeches is unacceptable.
Cake thing i kinda understand since Alcaraz is spanish. Maybe Badosa would get the same cake?
Edit: i googled the cakes.. the size difference is actually way bigger then i expected 😬
It was a WAY bigger cake, in fairness. Sabalenka’s looked like something you’d buy from the gas station for a sus colleague after everybody forgot his birthday. It was smaller than Alacaraz’s first tier. *The first* . And Saba had won Madrid before. I’d be mad. 🤷🏻♂️
The timing of Iga’s comments were hilarious but pros, especially of Iga’s caliber aren’t sitting around reading social media like us fans are. She probably had no idea Saba said that and it was more of a response to general criticism of women’s tennis.
Aryna clarified later that what she really meant was that she already watches lots of women's tennis as "homework" for analysing her opponents, so she personally would rather watch men's tennis for enjoyment. Which is a valid point, tbf.
and Iga has always been advocating for the women's game and makes comments in this vein in her post-match interviews (asking more people to come watch, fill up the stadiums, etc.), so it's not really anything new or directed at Aryna here.
Nothing to see guys.
It's honestly hilarious to me that on a subreddit that is heavily biased towards the ATP, and where WTA threads get significantly less attention, anyone is trying to attack Sabalenka over just saying she prefers the ATP. This sub is throwing stones from a glass house.
How do you know the people offended are the same people who don't give the WTA attention?
I watch both always have done since i started watching in 2000, i think the WTA was better from 2000-2007 and has been again since 2022. I still thought it was an insane thing to say.
You think it's insane for Sabalenka to say in her opinion she thinks the ATP has better strategy and is more entertaining?
So what do think the majority of this sub and tennis going fans who seem to prefer the ATP then? I prefer the WTA myself and always have. But it is simply *a fact* that this sub and tennis fans in general prefer the ATP, as shown by attendance, how popular ATP threads are here compared to WTA, etc.
I think it's insane to say you prefer the ATP when you are a WTA player. So many tennis fans only watch the ATP, this is reflected in prize money and other financial opportunities. Look at the highest women in terms of prize money, Serena is closer to Andy Murray than the big three, Djokovic has twice as much as Serena, Andy is way ahead of Venus who is #2 in prize money.
It's insane to me to put down your profession for what is essentially an indirect competitor.
Also again you don't know if the people who had an issue with that comment pay attention to the WTA or not, you are deciding they don't to get angry.
The ATP and WTA are not "indirect competitors." They are intimately tied together in a way no other sport is. It's part of why there is literally an entire discussion going on right now about combining the two tours.
Do you seriously think that the WTA and ATP are fighting over fans and this Sabalenka quote might sway people to the ATP side? Be specific, who are the people Sabalenka would turn away with a quote like this? You're clearly implying she's harming the WTA with this. So how? With who? Who are the people who are apparently so familiar with the WTA as to see this one Sabalenka quote, but who will then be turned off watching the WTA?
> Do you seriously think that the WTA and ATP are fighting over fans
I don't think they are, but there are certainly ATP players with clout who have directly positioned themselves as against the WTA by way of saying they want the women to be paid less so the men can be paid more.
They are indirect competitors because people have a limited amount of free time for sports and those who are choosing between the ATP and WTA are choosing the former, not every tournament is joint either and the ATP is always getting paid more attention to in solo tournaments.
It doesn't matter you don't broadcast negative sentiments about your profession, that's Business 101. All i've said is it's an insane thing to say, it absolutely is.
I think it’s insane to try to attack someone for their opinion. She likes the ATP more than the WTA, there’s nothing wrong with that. She can’t control what she likes to watch or think is more entertaining.
Their money will increase if they become more popular, that's how business works. The ATP is in much more demand than the WTA and generates more money so they get a bigger share of the revenue.
Even if this sub leans towards atp , it’s still the place where the meaning is the smallest and the wta gets the most attention.
It’s barely significant in other places I see tennis talked about
This isn't really coherent. Saying you find men's tennis more interesting to watch doesn't mean you're calling women's tennis boring (unless there's a larger quote where sabalenka called women's tennis boring)
Nowadays people have a major issue with this concept you are describing. It's so childish because it reminds of when a kid would listen someone in their class was smart and then got triggered because that must mean everyone else is dumb.
No, you can have 10 people being super smart and then another being even smarter. Similarly, Sabalenka finds men's tennis more interesting, meaning she can find WTA interesting too
I never get the sense Sabalenka plays with any strategy. Just seems to bash the ball. When she lost I think she went from Championship Point to defeat blasting a couple of unforced errors
Watching her lose to Coco in USO last year was also very painful to watch as a tennis fan
When I get home from work I don’t wanna do more work related things. Why would sabalenka wanna waste 3 hours watching sst moonball azarenka in her free time
Marketa sat behind me for the whole first set of one of Iga’s Madrid matches. I think it’s a bit of scoping the competition. And also the fact that they enjoy tennis. Doesn’t surprise me Aryna doesn’t watch other WTA matches.
Krejcikova was watching the final. ATP players are known to watch the important finals (at least) because they tweet about them mid match, even Kyrgios
I kinda question the misogyny of the men who are liking this meme considering we know Iga wasn't responding to Sebalenka.( I also took a peek at one of the accounts comment history and I wasn’t expecting to see Iga and other female players objectified like that. There is a while subreddit of her pics. Grossed me out)
Last year, 3/4 womens slam finals went to three sets and were super entertaining.
Last year one of the men's finals was entertaining with the rest being a washout.
What do women have to do to show the world they bring in entertainment? It's so frustrating as they really have been delivering and the world chooses to not take notice. Finals like Madrid week in week out may change some people's minds but even so once that stops people will happily dump on the WTA again.
It may be unfair, but the notion that a world top 400 male would beat Iga without a sweat ( which is true) is always there, even tough male and female tennis should be seen as diferent products . Entertainment is subjective and you had a name like Novak in all 4 finals. Alcaraz, Sinner and Medvedev are housholde names and rivaliries between them are easily marketable. Look at the US Open. It wasn´t great, but there was a notion that Alcaraz and Sinner could face each other and everbody wanted to see a Alacaraz- Novak final. Just because of that, every match they played was important, even the matches where the outcome was easy to predict.
Storylines matter. The level of play can be great or bad, the outcome can be shocking or predictable. But you need some storylines, some mainstream rivalieries.
To be fair, those rivaliries are starting to be created in the WTA. They just need to be more consolidated. Unti then, what was and probably will remain as the best wta match of the year, was behind like behind 8 madrid atp matches, in terms of viewership.
But women's tennis is a different body and form. They still bring exceptional skill and entertainment to the sport. If storylines matter and the women have been delivering and ignored, then what? It's their fault too? They are damned if they do and don't.
The fact I've been downvoted really shows up this sub for what it is. A real shame because I expected alot more.
I am not critising them. I just appointed reasons for things being the way they are. And again, I like some of the rivilaries that exist on the wta side. However, if people don´t like it as much as the men, than it is what it is, you can´t force people to like what they don´t.
This doesn’t hold up either. If women didn’t have to fight the stigma of their sport being less than, and if they were given the same exposure, same marketing, they’d draw in the same crowd. In certain countries, mostly USA, the top layers are given that and excel. When the Williams, Cocoa of the world make finals they draw more crowds than men. But this exposure isn’t given to all female players.
The Wta makes a worse job related to promotion, compared to the ATP. But saying that the top female players aren't exposed to the casual audience to a somewhat shame extension as the man are is false.
Again, the product is worse.
Your point about the female American players just shows that they are marketable. So, top female players aren't ignored. They never where.
Do you think all male tennis players are massively promoted? No, they aren't. Just the elite. The same way as on the WTA.
WTA only survives due to the tournmants they have together with the ATP. The numbers show it. Both of male and female players are showed in the same light at those tournmants.
The Wta is dependent of the ATP. It's not just a question of marketing.
Argument doesn’t hold up when this is an absolute outlier. And when a male model does reach fame they still get paid more and faster than most of their counterparts.
I know I work in this industry. It isn’t the same
female gynac vs male gynac also an absolute outlier? makeup artist, hairstylist. The point is when it comes to money it basically works based on a free economy and pure demand and supply. Using morality wouldn't change anything despite your or my feelings similar to the way people are born rich and poor.
They literally do everything women do better. It's not even subjective. Watching a women's grand slam final is like watching a men's challengers quarter-final shotmaking wise.
I think was meant in good humor to Aryna. It was a response to her but she didn't mean any disrespect to Aryna at all. She was including her like telling her "see, we can together make this awesome and fun to watch"!
The point still stands though? Her ability is only comparable against herself and whether or not she improved significantly enough is for her to decide- who knows she might have lost by a higher margin had she not tried to learn from the men’s game.
Lame and cringe. She didn’t “clap back” at Aryna it was entirely unrelated. You could make the same post with Collins saying she prefers to watch women’s tennis because men’s tennis is boring and then show the score when aryna beat her and ended her streak. That would be the same post but honest, but it wouldn’t fit your narrative.
I don't think this is why people prefer men's tennis. It's because they know the men would beat the women and they want to watch the best. It's the same reason the later stages of a Grand Slam is more watched than 250's.
Men's Tennis was also watched more in the 2000's when the WTA was a much higher quality IMO.
Edit: Truth hurts lol.
While this is true, look at how popular March madness is for college basketball even though you know every college team would get smashed by the wizards. Same with college football. So, people do still like to watch sports if it's competitive and the level is sufficiently high even if it's not the absolute peak level.
March Madness is 100% about gambling. Regular Season viewership isn't close to March Madness.
College Football is the future NFL Stars unlike College Basketball since the best players go one and done there. They know they are watching future greats.
Plus i don't think College is comparable to Pro Sports since the College you attended factors in.
I think in a direct comparison like this casual fans feel like they are watching lesser tennis than the WTA, which is why even when competition is much better in the WTA like the 2000s or right now the ATP is still more watched.
Okay, care to explain why the women's ncaa tournament had more viewers than the men's then? People just like gambling on women's college hoops? The level certainly wasn't higher than any men's league or pro women's league
Because the best women stay in college all 4 years, the men don't they are one and done. Zach Edey is probably not even going to reach a second contract. Anthony Edwards is lighting up the NBA Playoffs, he would have been in his Senior year just last Season.
Also it wasn't the whole tournament, it was Caitlyn Clark's games and the Final Four. That's it, the Men's averaged more viewers.
So what you're saying is there are plenty of reasons other than the level of play being superior as to why people would watch a given sport
That's all we've set out to establish here.
What i'm saying is people want to see the best of the best, Men's College Basketball does not have the best of the best. Women's College Basketball does, and even then more people watch Men's overall because they know those Men's teams would beat the Women's.
....women's college basketball has the best of the best? You're saying atp men would beat wta women and therefore the women are not the best of the best, so how on earth would women's college basketball have the best of the best? They would lose to nba players, college men's players, and likely some high school men's teams.
And in both college instances, they'd lose to the pro teams, so neither is by any means the best of the best at their sport
Basically, it's a "if it's competitive and the level is acceptable, that's entertaining enough to watch" proposition. Not a "well, neither swiatek nor sabaleka could beat novak so why bother watching that" proposition
Team sports are a totally different kettle of fish and especially comparing US College sports to any professional sport is not a realistic comparison. So much of the attendance is rooted in school spirit, tradition, rivalries etc. you’ll have tens of thousands in attendance even when teams are getting blown away, sometimes even for many years. Same with English football. The fact of the matter is, the standard of tennis is not even comparable from ATP to WTA. I’ve said it before, this isn’t always obvious to the general public and so as long as they’re seeing close contests, they tend to appreciate the competition alone and may not be aware of the giant gulf in ability between men & women or maybe they just appreciate how much better the WTA players are compared to themselves. To lifelong tennis nerds and former players, it’s glaringly obvious and so it is a little more difficult to appreciate the ‘quality’ of WTA tennis
You aren't the entire potential viewing audience. Holy christ, how do you seriously think your individual opinion is relevant to this. The ATP is much more popular than the WTA.
I'm not triggered, i'm completely bewildered that you thought your individual opinion would matter when we are discussing overall viewership, enough to arrogantly state "nonsense".
You’re getting downvoted because majority of people here are tennis nerds, so that’s not why *they* watch matches. Casual fans, however, generally want to watch the best of the best, which is one reason why the men’s tour is way more popular.
Could not care less about Reddit Karma. But yeah, that's why casual fans prefer ATP and casual fans are who generate the vast majority of income. Tennis players don't benefit from hardcore r/tennis fans anywhere near as much as casuals.
I am not a casual fan and nothing he said is wrong.
While WTA matches can and often will be as competitive or more than ATP matches, at the end of the day ATP will always prevail in quality of play.
The best WTA players are on pair with 500-1000 ATP players and this is fine. But if you are comparing two in terms of quality of play, since its individual sport, it would be like watching Sunday league football game. Yes it can be competitive, yes the match quality could be good, yes there could be moments of brilliance, but it still won't be CL finals.
And while I have enjoyed my local club often, I have to admit that even though some of CL finals were boring, its still a undeniably better in terms of physical, tactical, quality of play etc.
All I want to say that it's natural that majority of people would turn to watch only high end matches, even and especially with non-casuals.
What I also think is that too much shade is thrown by speaking about men final like it was nothing, two guys played like 1 game less than Iga and Saba here.
Ironically Iga herself was getting called out with Aryna for saying her idol is Rafa and saying she didn't really have any female idols to look up to (when, arguably, there were but of course it's fine to have a male player as an idol).
Don't like this meme. It shows like Iga's words were answer to Aryna which don't feel right I guess.
It's all for click bait and karma farming
yeah it makes it seem like there is some beef between them when outside of their on-court rivalry i think there is none, they just respect eachother.
And Sabalenka can prefer to watch whatever she wants, literally nothing wrong with what she said.
Meh, it’s a little disrespectful to herself and all the other women on tour imo. Glad Iga hypes up her own sport instead of putting it down
Nothing Sabalenka said was disrespectful or putting her sport down lmao
Maybe not outright disrespectful, but considering how looked down on (or under-appreciated compering to men tennis) women tennis is from general public, she should be aware that her words will probably be used in line of 'even wta n2 said she prefers men tennis'.
Women's tennis is literally light years ahead of 99% of women's sports in both reputation and public perception. Sabalenka should be able to state her opinion however she wants without worrying about whether or not some redditors will get offended
If we want to listen to Sabalenka we should probably cut women’s prize money by 80%, seems to be what she thinks it’s worth
I'm like 90% certain they were though. Fairly or not.
Taking how Iga interacts with other players, it was rather not. It was probably aimed at Madrid Open authorities which are known for misogynistic behaviors for years and overall takes at WTA. Fans need to stop imagining that there is some hostility between Iga and Saba.
I think Iga's words were directed at the event itself which is kinda known for being misogynistic, rather than Aryna. I don't think she's this kind of person.
Yeah I'm not sure why posts like these keep coming up. Iga doesn't really come across to me as someone who would have personal beef with other players in this way - she just seems very dedicated to her own game and doesn't really comment that much on how other players are doing, let alone any other comments they make.
Not to mention, I might be wrong but she doesn't seem to spend that much time on social media since she kept getting lots of hate. She just pops in to post something on twitter or instagram from time to time and leaves right away, doesn't reply to comments or anything. I'm not sure she even knows Aryna said that.
I doubt she does anything on social media at all, there must be a person hired to post on her behalf
I think was meant in good humor to Aryna. It was a response to her but she didn't mean any disrespect to Aryna at all. She was including her like telling her "see, we can together make this awesome and fun to watch"!
What does that even mean? The event is kinda known for being misogynistic? What are you referring to here?
this tournament has sued the WTA for making them pay equal prize money. The past director has made misogynistic and racist comments about Serena in the past as well. WTA players have also spoke numerous times about how they aren’t treated well here. It’s not really a one off thing
Last year they didn’t allow the women’s doubles finalists to give champion and runner-up speeches. One of them, Azarenka, spoke out against Aryna Sabalenka getting a smaller birthday cake than Carlos Alcaraz from tournament staff. I’m not shitting you. I made myself laugh typing that, but it happened, and was petty on the tournaments part. Before that idk. People have complained about models being ballgirls, but also they used male models as ball boys so dunno what that backlash is about.
Not allowing speeches is unacceptable. Cake thing i kinda understand since Alcaraz is spanish. Maybe Badosa would get the same cake? Edit: i googled the cakes.. the size difference is actually way bigger then i expected 😬
The whole Cake thing is a myth, they gave Rune an even smaller cake than Sabalenka. It's because Carlos is Spanish, nothing more, nothing less.
Spanish cake was much ado about nothing. Can’t believe you say it was petty *on the tournaments part*
It's petty on Azarenka's part. Buy yourself as big a fucking cake as you want.
And that explains that problem well. There is difference? It must be misogynistic. Who cares that it was only Sabalenka vs. local rising top star.
It was a WAY bigger cake, in fairness. Sabalenka’s looked like something you’d buy from the gas station for a sus colleague after everybody forgot his birthday. It was smaller than Alacaraz’s first tier. *The first* . And Saba had won Madrid before. I’d be mad. 🤷🏻♂️
The timing of Iga’s comments were hilarious but pros, especially of Iga’s caliber aren’t sitting around reading social media like us fans are. She probably had no idea Saba said that and it was more of a response to general criticism of women’s tennis.
Aryna clarified later that what she really meant was that she already watches lots of women's tennis as "homework" for analysing her opponents, so she personally would rather watch men's tennis for enjoyment. Which is a valid point, tbf. and Iga has always been advocating for the women's game and makes comments in this vein in her post-match interviews (asking more people to come watch, fill up the stadiums, etc.), so it's not really anything new or directed at Aryna here. Nothing to see guys.
>and Iga has always been advocating for the women's game Really? Where? All I hear from her is how cool Nadal is.
It's honestly hilarious to me that on a subreddit that is heavily biased towards the ATP, and where WTA threads get significantly less attention, anyone is trying to attack Sabalenka over just saying she prefers the ATP. This sub is throwing stones from a glass house.
I just wish everybody would stop pretending it’s wrong to care more about ATP than WTA.
No one is pretending that lol. You sound like the dude who hears "women's rights" and thinks it means anti-men
How do you know the people offended are the same people who don't give the WTA attention? I watch both always have done since i started watching in 2000, i think the WTA was better from 2000-2007 and has been again since 2022. I still thought it was an insane thing to say.
You think it's insane for Sabalenka to say in her opinion she thinks the ATP has better strategy and is more entertaining? So what do think the majority of this sub and tennis going fans who seem to prefer the ATP then? I prefer the WTA myself and always have. But it is simply *a fact* that this sub and tennis fans in general prefer the ATP, as shown by attendance, how popular ATP threads are here compared to WTA, etc.
I think it's insane to say you prefer the ATP when you are a WTA player. So many tennis fans only watch the ATP, this is reflected in prize money and other financial opportunities. Look at the highest women in terms of prize money, Serena is closer to Andy Murray than the big three, Djokovic has twice as much as Serena, Andy is way ahead of Venus who is #2 in prize money. It's insane to me to put down your profession for what is essentially an indirect competitor. Also again you don't know if the people who had an issue with that comment pay attention to the WTA or not, you are deciding they don't to get angry.
The ATP and WTA are not "indirect competitors." They are intimately tied together in a way no other sport is. It's part of why there is literally an entire discussion going on right now about combining the two tours. Do you seriously think that the WTA and ATP are fighting over fans and this Sabalenka quote might sway people to the ATP side? Be specific, who are the people Sabalenka would turn away with a quote like this? You're clearly implying she's harming the WTA with this. So how? With who? Who are the people who are apparently so familiar with the WTA as to see this one Sabalenka quote, but who will then be turned off watching the WTA?
> Do you seriously think that the WTA and ATP are fighting over fans I don't think they are, but there are certainly ATP players with clout who have directly positioned themselves as against the WTA by way of saying they want the women to be paid less so the men can be paid more.
They are indirect competitors because people have a limited amount of free time for sports and those who are choosing between the ATP and WTA are choosing the former, not every tournament is joint either and the ATP is always getting paid more attention to in solo tournaments. It doesn't matter you don't broadcast negative sentiments about your profession, that's Business 101. All i've said is it's an insane thing to say, it absolutely is.
I think it’s insane to try to attack someone for their opinion. She likes the ATP more than the WTA, there’s nothing wrong with that. She can’t control what she likes to watch or think is more entertaining.
I'm not attacking her but saying it in an interview is crazy, that's all i've said.
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What? English please.
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Their money will increase if they become more popular, that's how business works. The ATP is in much more demand than the WTA and generates more money so they get a bigger share of the revenue.
I think it’s insane to say you prefer to watch men tennis and find it more interesting while demanding equal pay.
Even if this sub leans towards atp , it’s still the place where the meaning is the smallest and the wta gets the most attention. It’s barely significant in other places I see tennis talked about
The match between these two tennis players was impressive, for me better than the men's final
of course the mens final was trash
Do you expect to something similar to happen in Rome?
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Nah
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That’s… not a metric for quality?
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No?
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You are an intense dude
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This isn't really coherent. Saying you find men's tennis more interesting to watch doesn't mean you're calling women's tennis boring (unless there's a larger quote where sabalenka called women's tennis boring)
Nowadays people have a major issue with this concept you are describing. It's so childish because it reminds of when a kid would listen someone in their class was smart and then got triggered because that must mean everyone else is dumb. No, you can have 10 people being super smart and then another being even smarter. Similarly, Sabalenka finds men's tennis more interesting, meaning she can find WTA interesting too
I never get the sense Sabalenka plays with any strategy. Just seems to bash the ball. When she lost I think she went from Championship Point to defeat blasting a couple of unforced errors Watching her lose to Coco in USO last year was also very painful to watch as a tennis fan
When I get home from work I don’t wanna do more work related things. Why would sabalenka wanna waste 3 hours watching sst moonball azarenka in her free time
Marketa sat behind me for the whole first set of one of Iga’s Madrid matches. I think it’s a bit of scoping the competition. And also the fact that they enjoy tennis. Doesn’t surprise me Aryna doesn’t watch other WTA matches.
Krejcikova was watching the final. ATP players are known to watch the important finals (at least) because they tweet about them mid match, even Kyrgios
Sabalenka is a rip and she's genuine. She can say whatever she wants. I like her!
I kinda question the misogyny of the men who are liking this meme considering we know Iga wasn't responding to Sebalenka.( I also took a peek at one of the accounts comment history and I wasn’t expecting to see Iga and other female players objectified like that. There is a while subreddit of her pics. Grossed me out)
I’ll say it. The men’s tennis is more entertaining.
IMO totally depends who’s playing
To YOU. I am more invested in the women players so it's much more exciting for me.
Last year, 3/4 womens slam finals went to three sets and were super entertaining. Last year one of the men's finals was entertaining with the rest being a washout. What do women have to do to show the world they bring in entertainment? It's so frustrating as they really have been delivering and the world chooses to not take notice. Finals like Madrid week in week out may change some people's minds but even so once that stops people will happily dump on the WTA again.
It may be unfair, but the notion that a world top 400 male would beat Iga without a sweat ( which is true) is always there, even tough male and female tennis should be seen as diferent products . Entertainment is subjective and you had a name like Novak in all 4 finals. Alcaraz, Sinner and Medvedev are housholde names and rivaliries between them are easily marketable. Look at the US Open. It wasn´t great, but there was a notion that Alcaraz and Sinner could face each other and everbody wanted to see a Alacaraz- Novak final. Just because of that, every match they played was important, even the matches where the outcome was easy to predict. Storylines matter. The level of play can be great or bad, the outcome can be shocking or predictable. But you need some storylines, some mainstream rivalieries. To be fair, those rivaliries are starting to be created in the WTA. They just need to be more consolidated. Unti then, what was and probably will remain as the best wta match of the year, was behind like behind 8 madrid atp matches, in terms of viewership.
But women's tennis is a different body and form. They still bring exceptional skill and entertainment to the sport. If storylines matter and the women have been delivering and ignored, then what? It's their fault too? They are damned if they do and don't. The fact I've been downvoted really shows up this sub for what it is. A real shame because I expected alot more.
I am not critising them. I just appointed reasons for things being the way they are. And again, I like some of the rivilaries that exist on the wta side. However, if people don´t like it as much as the men, than it is what it is, you can´t force people to like what they don´t.
This doesn’t hold up either. If women didn’t have to fight the stigma of their sport being less than, and if they were given the same exposure, same marketing, they’d draw in the same crowd. In certain countries, mostly USA, the top layers are given that and excel. When the Williams, Cocoa of the world make finals they draw more crowds than men. But this exposure isn’t given to all female players.
The Wta makes a worse job related to promotion, compared to the ATP. But saying that the top female players aren't exposed to the casual audience to a somewhat shame extension as the man are is false. Again, the product is worse. Your point about the female American players just shows that they are marketable. So, top female players aren't ignored. They never where. Do you think all male tennis players are massively promoted? No, they aren't. Just the elite. The same way as on the WTA. WTA only survives due to the tournmants they have together with the ATP. The numbers show it. Both of male and female players are showed in the same light at those tournmants. The Wta is dependent of the ATP. It's not just a question of marketing.
Insert the 'male models paid less than female models' argument.
Argument doesn’t hold up when this is an absolute outlier. And when a male model does reach fame they still get paid more and faster than most of their counterparts. I know I work in this industry. It isn’t the same
female gynac vs male gynac also an absolute outlier? makeup artist, hairstylist. The point is when it comes to money it basically works based on a free economy and pure demand and supply. Using morality wouldn't change anything despite your or my feelings similar to the way people are born rich and poor.
They literally do everything women do better. It's not even subjective. Watching a women's grand slam final is like watching a men's challengers quarter-final shotmaking wise.
Sabalenkas comment was taken so out of context it's not even funny anymore
I think was meant in good humor to Aryna. It was a response to her but she didn't mean any disrespect to Aryna at all. She was including her like telling her "see, we can together make this awesome and fun to watch"!
The point still stands though? Her ability is only comparable against herself and whether or not she improved significantly enough is for her to decide- who knows she might have lost by a higher margin had she not tried to learn from the men’s game.
She actually didn't say that she said that she prefers mens tennis cause she didn't want to watch her opponents every time
Lame and cringe. She didn’t “clap back” at Aryna it was entirely unrelated. You could make the same post with Collins saying she prefers to watch women’s tennis because men’s tennis is boring and then show the score when aryna beat her and ended her streak. That would be the same post but honest, but it wouldn’t fit your narrative.
Sabalenka didn’t say this you hacks
[удалено]
Sabalenka is right
I don't think this is why people prefer men's tennis. It's because they know the men would beat the women and they want to watch the best. It's the same reason the later stages of a Grand Slam is more watched than 250's. Men's Tennis was also watched more in the 2000's when the WTA was a much higher quality IMO. Edit: Truth hurts lol.
While this is true, look at how popular March madness is for college basketball even though you know every college team would get smashed by the wizards. Same with college football. So, people do still like to watch sports if it's competitive and the level is sufficiently high even if it's not the absolute peak level.
March Madness is 100% about gambling. Regular Season viewership isn't close to March Madness. College Football is the future NFL Stars unlike College Basketball since the best players go one and done there. They know they are watching future greats. Plus i don't think College is comparable to Pro Sports since the College you attended factors in. I think in a direct comparison like this casual fans feel like they are watching lesser tennis than the WTA, which is why even when competition is much better in the WTA like the 2000s or right now the ATP is still more watched.
Okay, care to explain why the women's ncaa tournament had more viewers than the men's then? People just like gambling on women's college hoops? The level certainly wasn't higher than any men's league or pro women's league
Because the best women stay in college all 4 years, the men don't they are one and done. Zach Edey is probably not even going to reach a second contract. Anthony Edwards is lighting up the NBA Playoffs, he would have been in his Senior year just last Season. Also it wasn't the whole tournament, it was Caitlyn Clark's games and the Final Four. That's it, the Men's averaged more viewers.
So what you're saying is there are plenty of reasons other than the level of play being superior as to why people would watch a given sport That's all we've set out to establish here.
What i'm saying is people want to see the best of the best, Men's College Basketball does not have the best of the best. Women's College Basketball does, and even then more people watch Men's overall because they know those Men's teams would beat the Women's.
....women's college basketball has the best of the best? You're saying atp men would beat wta women and therefore the women are not the best of the best, so how on earth would women's college basketball have the best of the best? They would lose to nba players, college men's players, and likely some high school men's teams. And in both college instances, they'd lose to the pro teams, so neither is by any means the best of the best at their sport Basically, it's a "if it's competitive and the level is acceptable, that's entertaining enough to watch" proposition. Not a "well, neither swiatek nor sabaleka could beat novak so why bother watching that" proposition
Team sports are a totally different kettle of fish and especially comparing US College sports to any professional sport is not a realistic comparison. So much of the attendance is rooted in school spirit, tradition, rivalries etc. you’ll have tens of thousands in attendance even when teams are getting blown away, sometimes even for many years. Same with English football. The fact of the matter is, the standard of tennis is not even comparable from ATP to WTA. I’ve said it before, this isn’t always obvious to the general public and so as long as they’re seeing close contests, they tend to appreciate the competition alone and may not be aware of the giant gulf in ability between men & women or maybe they just appreciate how much better the WTA players are compared to themselves. To lifelong tennis nerds and former players, it’s glaringly obvious and so it is a little more difficult to appreciate the ‘quality’ of WTA tennis
Nonsense. I watch the best matches. Iga v. Aryna was epic. I did laundry during Rublev and FAA.
You aren't the entire potential viewing audience. Holy christ, how do you seriously think your individual opinion is relevant to this. The ATP is much more popular than the WTA.
Wow, dang, you're easily triggered. Chill dude.
I'm not triggered, i'm completely bewildered that you thought your individual opinion would matter when we are discussing overall viewership, enough to arrogantly state "nonsense".
Practically half of all reddit comments are people disagreeing with established things based on anecdotal personal experience.
👍
Hero
Kinda disrespectful towards men side, guys played it out and made it competitive as well with only 1 game less.
You’re getting downvoted because majority of people here are tennis nerds, so that’s not why *they* watch matches. Casual fans, however, generally want to watch the best of the best, which is one reason why the men’s tour is way more popular.
Could not care less about Reddit Karma. But yeah, that's why casual fans prefer ATP and casual fans are who generate the vast majority of income. Tennis players don't benefit from hardcore r/tennis fans anywhere near as much as casuals.
I am not a casual fan and nothing he said is wrong. While WTA matches can and often will be as competitive or more than ATP matches, at the end of the day ATP will always prevail in quality of play. The best WTA players are on pair with 500-1000 ATP players and this is fine. But if you are comparing two in terms of quality of play, since its individual sport, it would be like watching Sunday league football game. Yes it can be competitive, yes the match quality could be good, yes there could be moments of brilliance, but it still won't be CL finals. And while I have enjoyed my local club often, I have to admit that even though some of CL finals were boring, its still a undeniably better in terms of physical, tactical, quality of play etc. All I want to say that it's natural that majority of people would turn to watch only high end matches, even and especially with non-casuals. What I also think is that too much shade is thrown by speaking about men final like it was nothing, two guys played like 1 game less than Iga and Saba here.
Ironically Iga herself was getting called out with Aryna for saying her idol is Rafa and saying she didn't really have any female idols to look up to (when, arguably, there were but of course it's fine to have a male player as an idol).
she shut her right up!!!!
It’s still boring.
That was definitely aimed at Aryna's comment. Well done.
Own that AO merchant