{"id":376277,"date":"2025-12-29T17:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T17:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/376277\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T17:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T17:50:09","slug":"battle-of-the-sexes-tennis-match-falls-flat-with-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/376277\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Battle of the Sexes&#8217; tennis match falls flat with fans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n  <\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Nick Kyrgios defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/tennis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">&#8220;Battle of the Sexes&#8221;<\/a> tennis match on Sunday, but tennis fans found fault with the event for several reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The &#8220;Battle of the Sexes&#8221; name was borrowed from the historic 1973 match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. King won the match in four straight sets and helped launch efforts to start a female tour and get equal pay in tennis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/tennis-battle-of-the-sexes-122925-1.jpg\" alt=\"Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios laugh during their match\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Nick Kyrgios, left, and Aryna Sabalenka interact at the net during their Battle of the Sexes match, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday Dec. 28, 2025. (Christopher Pike\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n<p>The Kyrgios-Sabalenka match didn\u2019t appear to have the same cultural significance. Kyrgios, who had been sidelined with injuries since his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/tennis\/wimbledon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">2022 Wimbledon final appearance<\/a>, faced a disadvantage of Sabalenka\u2019s side of the court being nearly 10% smaller in an attempt to level the playing field. Players were given one serve per point, rather than two.<\/p>\n<p>The match appeared to fall flat with fans.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka, one of the top players in women\u2019s tennis, said the match was good prep for the next season as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/tennis\/australian-open\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Australian Open<\/a> is just around the corner.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/tennis-star-aryna-sabalenka-says-female-athletes-facing-trans-competitors-just-not-fair-women\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">TENNIS STAR ARYNA SABALENKA SAYS FEMALE ATHLETES FACING TRANS COMPETITORS &#8216;JUST NOT FAIR TO WOMEN&#8217;<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/tennis-battle-of-the-sexes-122925-3.jpg\" alt=\"Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios poses for a photo\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios laugh ahead of their &#8220;Battle of the Sexes&#8221; tennis match in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday Dec. 28, 2025. (Amr Alfiky\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Really enjoyed the show,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and I feel like next time I play him I&#8217;m going to know the tactics, his strengths and his weaknesses, and it&#8217;s going to be a better match, for sure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She added, &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand how people were able to find something negative in this event.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kyrgios acknowledged that he had to &#8220;strap in&#8221; for the match, which was held in Dubai.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think this is a great stepping stone for the sport of tennis,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/tennis-battle-of-the-sexes-122925-2.jpg\" alt=\"Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios hold trophies\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Aryna Sabalenka holds her goddaughter next to Nick Kyrgios as they pose with trophies after their &#8220;Battle of the Sexes&#8221; tennis match, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday Dec. 28, 2025. (Amr Alfiky\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.onelink.me\/xLDS?pid=AppArticleLink&amp;af_dp=foxnewsaf%3A%2F%2F&amp;af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fapps-products\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>At the end of the event, both competitors smiled as they held up trophies.<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Fox News Digital\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FoxNewsSports_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u00a0sports coverage on X<\/a> and subscribe to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/newsletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Nick Kyrgios defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the latest &#8220;Battle of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1306],"class_list":{"0":"post-376277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-trending-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376277","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=376277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}