{"id":243535,"date":"2025-11-04T15:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T15:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/243535\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T15:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T15:43:10","slug":"sabalenka-to-battle-kyrgios-in-battle-of-the-sexes-tennis-match-tennis-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/243535\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka to battle Kyrgios in \u2018Battle of the Sexes\u2019 tennis match | Tennis News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">World number one Aryna Sabalenka will face ex-Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios in a male vs female contest in the UAE later this year.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 4 Nov 20254 Nov 2025<\/p>\n<p>Click here to share on social media<\/p>\n<p>share2<\/p>\n<p class=\"rich-share__social-text\">Share<\/p>\n<p>Women\u2019s world number one Aryna Sabalenka will take on Australian maverick Nick Kyrgios in a \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d exhibition match in Dubai on December 28, organisers announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka, 27, will face Kyrgios in a modern rendition of tennis icon Billie Jean King\u2019s 1973 showdown with fellow American Bobby Riggs, which turned out to be a watershed moment for both tennis and the women\u2019s movement.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>Played in Houston\u2019s Astrodome, the game was watched by some 90 million who tuned in worldwide to see King storm to a straight-sets victory that propelled the fight for equality in sports.<\/p>\n<p>Aged 55 at the time, Riggs had beaten Australia\u2019s Margaret Court four months earlier before King, aged 29, exacted revenge.<\/p>\n<p>In 1992, eight-time Grand Slam champion Jimmy Connors, then aged 40, beat 18-time major winner Martina Navratilova, then 35, under modified rules.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have so much respect for Billie Jean King and what she has done for the women\u2019s game,\u201d four-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m proud to represent women\u2019s tennis and to be part of this modern take of the iconic Battle of the Sexes match.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka and Kyrgios have teased about the match on numerous occasions in the past few months, with the contest initially slated to be hosted in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>World number 652 Kyrgios, who has played just five matches this year since returning from a serious wrist injury that kept him out for 18 months, said in September that he could easily beat Sabalenka.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the Australian\u2019s comments during her run to the US Open title, the Belarusian said she was eager to prove Kyrgios wrong.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a lot of respect for Nick and his talent, but make no mistake, I\u2019m ready to bring my A game,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n<p>Kyrgios reached a career-high singles ranking of 13 in 2016, and also made it to the final of Wimbledon in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old is a major draw on and off the court at Grand Slams with his natural talent and unapologetic personality, which has also landed him in controversies in the past.<\/p>\n<p>The match will take place at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4082942\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/AP25078788523358-1762261939.jpg\" alt=\"Nick Kyrgios reacts.\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>Australia\u2019s Nick Kyrgios has won seven ATP Tour singles titles, but has rarely played in recent years due to constant injury and other off-court commitments [File: Lynne Sladky\/AP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number one Aryna Sabalenka will face ex-Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios in a male vs female contest in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[50,217,101,118,56,54,158,55,3544],"class_list":{"0":"post-243535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}