{"id":343810,"date":"2025-12-12T06:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T06:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/343810\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T06:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T06:01:15","slug":"sabalenka-insists-kyrgios-exhibition-will-not-threaten-reputation-of-womens-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/343810\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka insists Kyrgios exhibition will not threaten reputation of women’s tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

World number one Aryna Sabalenka says she is not concerned that losing to Nick Kyrgios in this month’s ‘Battle of the Sexes’ exhibition could damage the reputation of \u200bwomen’s tennis.<\/p>\n

Four-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka<\/a> will play the Australian, ranked 672 in the world, on December 28<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I am \u200cnot putting myself at any risk,” the 27-year-old Belarusian told \u200cthe BBC. “We’re there to have fun and bring great tennis. Whoever wins, wins.<\/p>\n

“It’s so obvious that the man is biologically stronger than the woman, but it’s not about \u2060that. This event is only going to help bring women’s \u200ctennis to a higher level.”<\/p>\n

Some have criticised the event which has \u200bechoes of the original 1973 Battle of the Sexes match in which women’s trailblazer Billie Jean King was challenged by 55-year-old former Grand Slam winner Bobby Riggs who claimed women’s tennis was far inferior to men’s.<\/p>\n

King \u200cwon the match in Houston with the contest attracting a reported 90 million television viewers.<\/p>\n

Unlike Riggs, Kyrgios<\/a> is still an active Tour player although he played only five \u2060professional matches in 2025 because of the injuries that have dogged his career.<\/p>\n

“It’s not going to be an easy match for Nick,” Sabalenka said. “I’m going to be there competing and showing women are strong, powerful and good entertainment.<\/p>\n

“He’s in a lose-lose situation. I’m in a win-win situation.”<\/p>\n

Kyrgios, the former world number 13, said in September that women can’t return men’s serves and that he would beat Sabalenka without having to \u2060try 100%.<\/p>\n

However, he said the match would increase \u200crespect between the men’s and women’s Tours.<\/p>\n

“So I can’t do anything other than hope me and Aryna play our best tennis and, at the end of the day, whoever wins, that our handshake afterwards \u2060solidifies the union between males and females \u200bin the tennis world,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World number one Aryna Sabalenka says she is not concerned that losing to Nick Kyrgios in this month’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-343810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343810","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=343810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}