{"id":272136,"date":"2025-11-05T02:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T02:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/272136\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T02:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T02:34:08","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-to-play-nick-kyrgios-in-battle-of-the-sexes-exhibition-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/272136\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka to play Nick Kyrgios in ‘Battle of the Sexes’ exhibition match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka will play former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios in a \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d<\/a> exhibition match in Dubai on Dec. 28.<\/p>\n

After Sabalenka confirmed during the U.S. Open that discussions for the match were underway, both players on Tuesday posted logistical details on their social media channels.<\/p>\n

They will play indoors at the 17,000-seat Coca-Cola Arena.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios said this year he would get only one serve and would be hitting toward a smaller side of the court. The Australian, who has barely played in recent years because of injuries, has predicted he will win easily.<\/p>\n

Both players will also feature in an exhibition in New York on Dec. 8 but not against each other: Sabalenka will play Naomi Osaka and Kyrgios will face Tommy Paul.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot wait to get back out on court,\u201d Kyrgios said in an Instagram story. \u201cHonestly I\u2019m feeling amazing. I never thought I would be back into this position, being able to travel the world, see my fans and play some amazing tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The name of the Sabalenka-Kyrgios exhibition was borrowed from the 1973 match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs<\/a> \u2014 which King won in straight sets in the Houston Astrodome.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka is a four-time Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios lost the 2022 Wimbledon final to Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka will play former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios in a \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d exhibition match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[652,5367,145466,13362,18323,812,433,99,428,52463,31291,2467],"class_list":["post-272136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-billie-jean-king","tag-bobby-riggs","tag-dubai","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-nick-kyrgios","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tommy-paul","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-wimbledon-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}