Rios: Women's tennis is still a joke
Marcelo Rios has refused to back down on his claims that women's tennis is a "joke", despite coming under fresh attack from Jennifer Capriati.
World number one Capriati joined Venus Williams and Martina Hingis in attacking Rios, saying his comments were ridiculous and unworthy of a reply.
"I think we all know what the truth is," Capriati said. "That's just a ridiculous comment and I don't know what he meant by it."
Rios had already come under fire from Williams, who said the top men only played well at the grand slams, as well as Hingis, who challenged him to a match.
The outspoken Chilean laughed off Hingis' challenge, cracking a joke about the last battle of the sexes between Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters during the 1998 Australian Open.
The cocky Americans were in the ATP Office boasting that they could beat a male player ranked 200 in the world when Braasch, ranked 203 at the time, walked in and took them up on their offer.
A heavy smoker in the twilight of his career, Braasch had been out all morning playing golf but hardly raised a sweat as he beat Serena 6-1, then Venus 6-2 immediately after.
Responding to the latest criticism over his comments, Rios said his complaints about women's tennis were not directed at the top players but rather the depth in the game.
He said while the top men might struggle for hours to beat a player ranked well below them, it was different situation in women's tennis.
Rios said a classic example of this was when Martina Hingis beat 15th seed Amanda Coetzer 6-1, 6-0 in just 44 minutes on Sunday to reach the quarter-finals.
Rios, a former world number one, said the issue had been talked about in the locker room and all the men shared the same opinion.
"It is ridiculous what's going on in women's tennis and everybody agrees, but I'm not going to start arguing with every girl that says it's not true," Rios said.
"I'm not saying that the girls are better or that guys are better than girls - I just said girls win too easy."