Cynics have wondered exactly what the point of the event is.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka and Kyrgios insist it is to attract a different audience to the sport, with an emphasis on fun, entertainment and celebrity culture.<\/p>\n
“There are question marks – and that scares people,” Kyrgios said.<\/p>\n
“For us, it is exciting and gives us that thrill. I think events like this need to happen more in the tennis world.”<\/p>\n
The event, being held at the 17,000-seater Coca-Cola Arena, is on track to be sold out. <\/p>\n
Tickets range from about \u00a3100 in the upper tier stands to upwards of \u00a3600 on courtside benches.<\/p>\n
“Sport and entertainment is the same thing \u2013 people come to watch sport for the unknown, that’s why it is not played on paper,” Kyrgios said.<\/p>\n
“Whether it’s good or bad, they want to remember something they are going to see in everyday life.”<\/p>\n
Billie Jean King, who beat Bobby Riggs in the second Battle of the Sexes match in 1973, hopes it will be a “great” match but says it is “not the same” as her era-defining event.<\/p>\n
King’s victory over former Wimbledon champion Riggs – a 55-year-old self-proclaimed chauvinist – was a landmark moment in the fight for gender equality and laid the path for equal pay at the top of the game.<\/p>\n
“Ours was about social change; culturally, where we were in 1973. This one is not,” King told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cynics have wondered exactly what the point of the event is. Sabalenka and Kyrgios insist it is to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-373689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373689","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=373689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}