Paula Badosa asks Aryna Sabalenka to 'start losing' to make women's tennis more entertaining unlike Federer-Nadal-Djokovic-era men's tennis

Paula Badosa and Aryna Sabalenka were recently featured in a casual interview, where Badosa expressed her feelings about how Men’s tennis was dull due to the dominance of the ‘Big Three’— Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Both are set to play the Qatar TotalEnergies Open 2025, where Badosa, the ninth seed of the tournament will take on Katerina Siniakova in the first round on February 10. On the other hand, World No. 1 Sabalenka received a bye in the first round and was directly pushed to the second round, where she will face the winner of Emma Raducanu and Alexandrova Ekaterina.

Pavel Kisly, a tennis journalist and commentator dropped an episode of conversations he had with multiple tennis players. Upon interviewing the two best friends, Paula Badosa gave her take on how women’s tennis has been much more interesting than Men’s tennis over the years. She said:

“When you watch a movie you want to know the end how it’s going to finish or you don’t want to know it. Of course you don’t want to know it, so in women’s tennis you never know... In men’s tennis you always know okay Rafa, Djokovic, Roger. So in women, you never know what’s going to happen. And I hope you start losing (pointing towards Sabalenka) so it’s more entertaining.” [22:19]

The Spaniard advocated for women’s tennis by explaining through a movie analogy, that in Men’s tennis, the result was almost inevitable during the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era as they dominated the sport for over 2 decades, winning a cumulative 66 Grand Slams in that period. This led to men's tennis becoming a three-horse-race, with no room for competition from other players.

This is still standing true with Djokovic competing on the highest level at the age of 37 along with two rising stars, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. These three have won all the last 11 Grand Slams amongst them, making Men’s tennis less interesting again.

Additionally, Paula Badosa humorously took a dig at the Belarusian, to which Sabalenka replied:

“So she (Badosa) is definitely out from our podcast” (and both burst out laughing) [22:41]

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Aryna Sabalenka and Paula Badosa on receiving equal prize money as men

Paula Badosa (L) and Aryna Sabalenka (R) hugging after the semifinal of 2025 Australian Open - Source: Getty

During the conversations, a discussion broke out between the two ladies after the interviewer asked them about their opinion on Nikolay Davydenko’s statement. The former Russian tennis player had stated that equal prize money between men and women is ‘Unfair’.

First Badosa gave her opinion and said:

“My opinion is that we always have to accept that sports was made a long time ago for males but that’s a long time ago...Like you start hundreds of years ago, but i think we are in another century right now and sports and life has evolved so much.” [20:10]

“So for me the sacrifice that women make is unbelievable, and it’s not event that, I want to talk about tennis right now. The tennis in women now, it’s so entertaining, you can see like the person (pointing towards Sabalenka) I have by my side serving 200 kmph, hitting faster than men... So I think it’s pretty equal now,” she added. [20:40]

The world No. 1 also pitched in her thoughts in the discussion:

“We have to agree that the men’s level is always going to be higher just because of their physical abilities and strength, but it doesn’t mean that women are not working the same way. I think we sacrifice much more.” [21:09]

They even talked about the physical challenges women face, such as managing their health during menstruation and pregnancy, which often puts their emotional and physical well-being under significant strain. Taking all these factors into account, along with the growing competitiveness and entertainment value of women’s tennis, it is both fair and reasonable to conclude that women’s tennis fully deserves equal financial recognition as men's.