{"id":205524,"date":"2025-12-28T19:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/205524\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T19:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:22:07","slug":"nick-kyrgios-beats-aryna-sabalenka-in-battle-of-the-sexes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/205524\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios beats Aryna Sabalenka in \u2018Battle of the Sexes\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFP<\/p>\n

28 Dec, 2025 05:45 PM2 mins to read<\/p>\n

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\u200c<\/p>\n

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Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios embrace at the net after the Battle of the Sexes match in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Nick Kyrgios beat women\u2019s world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d today, in a highly-publicised showdown with modified rules that divided tennis fans.<\/p>\n

\n Former Wimbledon finalist Kyrgios won 6-3, 6-3 in an exhibition match in Dubai that bore little resemblance to the era-defining 1973 encounter between
\n Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.\n <\/p>\n

Back then, there was more at stake with the nascent women\u2019s professional tour, set up by King, fighting for its legitimacy and prize money for female players still far lower than for the men.<\/p>\n

King, one of the all-time greats of the women\u2019s game who was at the peak of her powers, saw off the 55-year-old Riggs, a top player in his day, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in Houston.<\/p>\n

Each player received only one serve and the dimensions of Sabalenka\u2019s side of the court were 9% smaller, in an attempt to restrict Kyrgios\u2019 power and speed advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFP 28 Dec, 2025 05:45 PM2 mins to read Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10801,5837,4498,18459,25808,9517,125543,78,125541,20932,111,139,6933,69,1118,6122,10802,125542,30948,213,3217,1361,223,1865,102,2834,377],"class_list":["post-205524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aryna","tag-battle","tag-beat","tag-beats","tag-divided","tag-fans","tag-highlypublicised","tag-in","tag-kyrgios","tag-modified","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nick","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-rules","tag-sabalenka","tag-sexes","tag-showdown","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-that","tag-the","tag-today","tag-with","tag-womens","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}