{"id":215239,"date":"2025-12-28T20:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T20:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/215239\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T20:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T20:58:07","slug":"kyrgios-beats-sabalenka-in-battle-of-the-sexes-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/215239\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyrgios beats Sabalenka in &#8216;Battle of the Sexes&#8217; match"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Kyrgios beat Aryna Sabalenka 6\u20113 6\u20113 in a &#8220;Battle of the Sexes&#8221; exhibition match billed as a modern take on Billie Jean King&#8217;s famous victory over former Grand Slam winner Bobby Riggs more than 50 years ago, but one that has ignited controversy over its relevance and meaning.<\/p>\n<p>Playing in front of a sold-out crowd at Dubai&#8217;s Coca-Cola Arena, Kyrgios negotiated the slightly smaller &#8220;equaliser&#8221; court on women&#8217;s world-number-one Sabalenka&#8217;s side to secure victory after a tight and entertaining contest played under modified rules.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0023ada9-614.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>With a one-serve-per-point rule in effect, both players faltered on their deliveries in crucial moments before Kyrgios broke for a 4-3 lead and went on to take the opening set.<\/p>\n<p>The maverick Australian was drenched in sweat and appeared out of breath in the second set after going 1-3 down, while his opponent danced to the music during a strategic timeout, but he persevered to make it 3-3 after Belarusian Sabalenka sent a shot long.<\/p>\n<p>Kyrgios, who shortened the points with cheeky drop shots and used variations on his serve to good effect, pulled away to seal the win on serve before sharing a warm hug with Sabalenka at the net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios beat Aryna Sabalenka 6\u20113 6\u20113 in a &#8220;Battle of the Sexes&#8221; exhibition match billed as a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-215239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}