On December 28, 2025, in Dubai, the WTA’s #1 Aryna Sabalenka faced Nick Kyrgios, ranked 671st in the ATP Rankings, in an exhibition match billed as a modern “Battle of the Sexes”. Kyrgios won 6-3 6-3 in a match with amended rules: Sabalenka’s side of the court was 9% smaller than a regulation court, and both players could only serve once each point.
Unlike Billie Jean King’s iconic 1973 victory over Bobby Riggs, which advanced gender equality and legitimacy for women’s professional tennis during a time of continuing discrimination, this match lacked any meaningful social or competitive stakes. Sabalenka couldn’t win more than six games despite Kyrgios being out of shape and physically limited after the first four games. Regrettably, Sabalenka’s almost inevitable defeat against a player clearly past his best (albeit still possessed of considerable talent) has done nothing but provide critics with a platform to disparage the women’s game.
Anyone who didn’t watch this match didn’t miss much. There were a few genuinely good points here and there, but Sabalenka wasn’t playing particularly well, and Kyrgios had sweat pouring off him after 15 minutes despite the points being short. The crowd was lifeless too, but that’s not entirely unusual in Dubai which, despite hosting a long-running and successful event on both tours, is not quite a tennis hotspot. Tellingly, it was only the arrival of Brazilian footballers Ronaldo and Kaka that really sparked the arena into life.
The constant technical issues during the broadcast didn’t help either, though how much of a global audience there was for this event is not clear. Kyrgios did claim that the match was all the world had been talking about for the last six months, but even a cursory scan of tennis headlines disproves that particular claim.
To make matters worse, the one serve rule that was intended to level the playing field instead exposed the single biggest biomechanical difference between ATP and WTA: the kick serve.
Kyrgios has one of the best serves in history. With the one-serve rule in place, he just hit a heavy kick serve every time. It’s a safe option for him 99% of the time, but because the ball jumps above shoulder height, it’s still aggressive and almost impossible for Sabalenka to attack. He took zero risk and put her on the defensive immediately.
By contrast, the kick serve is hardly used on the WTA Tour and Sabalenka relies on a flat/slice serve. Without a second serve buffer, she has no safe-aggressive option. She either had to roll in a weak ball or risk a fault. Giving them both one serve didn’t level anything, it just handed the match to the player who can hit a high-percentage aggressive serve.
All in all, it was just wrong all around. It may not be a fair contest but the real point is that men’s and women’s tennis don’t have to be in competition. Sabalenka had nothing to gain from it (except for the money), and the result just feeds into the worst narratives about women’s tennis which hardly need amplifying.
If they had just done a fun exhibition match for some charity, and it’s Kyrgios vs Sabalenka, it would have been easy to get behind. They could have mic’d them up and created an enjoyable spectacle. Instead, they decided to go with a needless re-run of the “Battle of the Sexes” – one that only tarnished the legacy of its predecessor.
Main photo credit: Mike Frey-Imagn Images