Women’s world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka will play men’s world No. 652 Nick Kyrgios in a tennis match labeled as the fourth Battle of the Sexes in the sport’s history.
Organized by Evolve, the agency which represents both players, the match will take place December 28 at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai. The past few months have been scattered with trash talk from both players, with Kyrgios claiming that “women can’t return our serves” and that he would win 6-2 on a podcast with top-15 player Alexander Bublik this summer.
“I’ll try my best to kick his ass,” Sabalenka said in a news conference at the U.S. Open.
Kyrgios’ fire was tempered in the announcement of the event, his highest-profile appearance on a tennis court since this year’s Australian Open. The 2022 Wimbledon finalist. returned from a full wrist reconstruction at his home Grand Slam, and has played just three competitive matches since. Sabalenka won the women’s singles title in Melbourne, and has played 59 matches since, winning 49 and lifting three trophies, including the U.S. Open.
“When the world No 1 challenges you, you answer the call,” Kyrgios said.
“I’ve got massive respect for Aryna; she’s a powerhouse and a true champion. But I’ve never backed down from a challenge, and I’m not just here to play — I’m here to entertain.”
The court and rules will be adjusted for the best-of-three match, with a 10-point tiebreak played at 1-1.
The court on Sabalenka’s side of the net will be shrunk by 9 percent, in both width and length. Both players will receive just one serve, to reduce Kyrgios’ advantage when starting the point.
Sabalenka, whose groundstroke speeds have outstripped ATP stars at some events in recent years, will be hitting into the same court that she always does.
Organizers declined to comment on the economics of the event, including appearance fees.
Sabalenka and Kyrgios’ match comes more than half a century after the most famous — and politically consequential — Battle of the Sexes in tennis. Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in three sets in an iconic meeting in 1973, which helped to increase the spotlight on the rising women’s game and helped lead to the establishment of the Women’s Tennis Association.
Tennis has since become the leading women’s sport in the world, with revenues, sponsorships and prize money that dwarf its equivalents across basketball, soccer and other team and individual sports.
“I have so much respect for Billie Jean King and what she has done for the women’s game,” she said. “I’m proud to represent women’s tennis and to be part of this modern take of the iconic Battle of the Sexes match.”
Kyrgios, who in 2023 pleaded guilty to common assault of his ex-girlfriend Chiara Passari before the charge was dismissed in an Australian court, has been criticized for his commentary about women in tennis. In September 2024, Kyrgios was criticized for writing “second serve” under a picture of himself and Jannik Sinner’s then-girlfriend, top-40 WTA player Anna Kalinskaya.
He was fined $10,000 in 2015, after on-court microphones picked up the Australian telling Stan Wawrinka that Thanasi Kokkinakis had “banged his girlfriend” during a Rogers Cup match in Montreal, Canada. Kyrgios later apologized for the remark on Facebook, writing: “My comments were made in the heat of the moment and were unacceptable on many levels.”
The first Battle of the Sexes match was played between Riggs and Margaret Court in 1973 — won by Riggs in two sets — before King’s famous win later that year in the match that is most commonly associated with the label.
A third, between Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova in 1992, was won by Connors in two sets.
‘It is not clear what is at stake’
The previous iterations of these sorts of stunt took place when the politics of tennis meant that they could mean something. Bobby Riggs spent the lead-up to his match against Billie Jean King playing up to his part as the notorious tennis chauvinist, and then lost.
In the 1990s, Jimmy Connors beat Martina Navratilova not long after he’d made a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Open, and Navratilova was still winning Grand Slams.
Serena Williams had plenty of opportunities to stage another version. She passed, bar the 1998 Australian Open, when Germany’s Karsten Braasch, with a career-high ranking of No. 38, beat her and her sister Venus handily in succession.
It is not clear what is at stake in this match. Women and men mostly seem to have moved beyond discussions of athletic superiority and focused more on matters of equal pay and marketing throughout the sport. The U.S. Open’s star-spangled mixed doubles event was predicated on the singular appeal of the best players in the world, men and women, playing on the same courts in competitive encounters. It is something that tennis holds over almost every other sport.
Kyrgios has criticized women’s tennis for years, deriding its lack of star power, save for a handful of women he deems of note. If Sabalenka loses to a player with one of the most lethal serves in the sport — if his wrist holds up — then it is not hard to anticipate the timbre of criticism, however much of it is in bad faith, that will follow.
Source link
