Sunday left one of those images that say far more than they seem at first glance. Tennis players Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka shared the court in a new version of the so-called Battle of the Sexes, played in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, in front of 17,000 spectators. The result mattered little, even if it was recorded on the scoreboard: 6-3, 6-3 for Kyrgios, in a match that lasted just over an hour.

It is worth starting there. It was not a tournament, there were no points at stake, no ranking implications, nothing of the sort. It was an event designed with a purely commercial and entertainment-driven purpose, an exhibition conceived to sell tickets and television rights, generate conversation and occupy media space. Theatre, not sport. Or, if preferred, sport understood as show, not as competition.

From that point on, everything that followed —and especially what was written about it— began to go astray. Part of the press, and many fans, fell into the trap of comparing the incomparable. There was talk of levels, superiority and implicit messages about men’s and women’s tennis, as if the result or the development of the match had any real analytical value. It did not. It never did.

Theatre versus a documentary…

Differences in muscle mass, genetics, ball speed or explosiveness are not opinions or ideological positions: they are biology. And mixing those factors into serious sporting debates is not only a mistake, it is a lack of rigour. No one analyses a play as if it were a scientific experiment, nor judges an actor for not behaving as in real life. Something similar happened here.

From a technical or tactical point of view, the match barely offered a couple of anecdotes: pre-arranged rallies, gestures for the gallery, smiles, a rhythm designed more for the audience than for competitive demand. Nothing that invites deep conclusions, and certainly nothing that justifies sporting verdicts. If the WTA or the ATP have anything to improve or feel proud of, it has nothing to do with what came out of this duel.

Humiliation of women’s tennis?

On social media, as expected, there were those who took the opportunity to humiliate women’s tennis, using a spectacle as if it were definitive proof of something that was never at stake. Not through analysis, but through bad faith, interested simplification or a twisted outlook that needs winners and losers even when there are none.

The underlying question is inevitable: has this done more harm than good? As a spectacle, it probably fulfilled its purpose. And, of course, avoiding the clash altogether for fear of what people might say would have been worse. That said, given the state of the world today, the match unfortunately raises doubts as a social message. When entertainment is presented as if it were competitive reality, the result is usually confusion for the masses. And confusion is fertile ground for the poorest discourses.

This match has once again served as an uncomfortable mirror. Not so much of tennis, but of ourselves. Of a society that consumes cardboard entertainment, with tricks attached, without stopping to think about what it is watching or why. Thinking requires effort, nuance and time. And that, today, seems to be a toll many prefer not to pay.

Without a doubt, it is not the best choice to explain gender equality to those who do not believe in it.