Women’s tennis is at its peak as the 2026 season begins, with five different players winning five of the sport’s biggest titles this year. The world’s No. 1 woman has an idea to take it to the “next level”: an exhibition match against the men on a modified court.
Aryna Sabalenka will take on 2022 Wimbledon men’s singles runner-up Nick Kyrgios in Dubai on Thursday in a match dubbed a “battle of the sexes” that she believes will resonate with future tennis players.
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“By putting myself in this situation, playing a man, I’m inspiring the next generation (of women) to be great, to challenge themselves, to be strong,” Sabalenka said at a press conference before the event. Playing alongside Kyrgios, Kyrgios has only played seven games in three years due to injury and is currently ranked 673rd in the world.
“What other sport in the world can you have your favorite female athlete competing on the same court as some of your favorite male athletes? It would be a show,” Kyrgios said in a joint interview with Piers Morgan earlier this month.
The name of the “show” commemorates a match in September 1973 when 29-year-old Billie Jean King (eventually a 12-time Grand Slam singles champion and a founding member of the women’s tennis tour) faced former men’s world number one Bobby Riggs, who had retired 22 years earlier at the age of 55.
The impact of that game went far beyond the confines of the playing field.
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Just a few months ago, King founded the WTA and forced equal prize money between men and women at the U.S. Open. It was a foundational moment for the women’s movement, and she feared King’s defeat would spell doom for everything she and so many others had worked so hard for. Earlier that year, Riggs easily defeated top women’s player Margaret Court.
King won 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in front of a reported 30,472 spectators at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, and around 90 million people around the world, and sent a message that women’s sports and athletes deserve equal respect and recognition.
Half a century later, when the 27-year-old Sabalenka and the 30-year-old Kyrgios (both declined to be interviewed for this article) met, it was less clear what was at stake.
The 2025 event was criticized as a lose-lose event for Sabalenka and women’s tennis, which has since become the world’s leading women’s sport, with revenues, sponsorships and prize money dwarfing those in basketball, soccer and other team and individual sports.
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Its world No. 1 meeting with Kyrgios is just around the corner, in a universe focused on spectacle, reusing a name whose sporting resonance has not yet faded to stage an event that, its designers and critics agree, lives up to it.
While the tournament is organized by publisher Tatler, the origins of Sabalenka and Kyrgios’ involvement come from their shared representation company Evolve, a company co-founded by agent Stuart Duguid and four-time women’s Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, although the latter left the company this month.
Duguid said in a November interview that games like this figure heavily in discussions about his career.
“Ever since I’ve been working in tennis, people have always said to me, no matter who the No. 1 female player is, ‘Do you think she’s going to beat the men’s No. 250 player? Is she going to beat a (male) college player?'” he said. “So there’s definitely an interest. People are definitely curious.”
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The parameters of the contest by default indicate that the answer to both questions above is “probably not.”
Both players served just once per point instead of two, and Sabalenka’s side of the court was 9 percent smaller than Kyrgios’ side, reducing his service advantage and forcing him to have more space when hitting the ball.
Duguid said the figure was the result of “crude scientific research” based on performance differences found in world records in track and field and swimming, not tennis. “I don’t think it’s a controversial point to say that Kyrgios would be the favorite if they played a regular match. I think anyone who watches tennis would argue that,” Duguid said.
The wider question is whether tennis still needs to have this debate, and whether it needs to be debated with these protagonists.
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There are still inequalities in bonuses. The schedule of Grand Slam tournaments, particularly Roland Garros – where organizers insist they make decisions based solely on quality of play – often seems to prioritize the men’s tournament over the women’s. But before and after Kim’s historic victory over Riggs, the best female players in the world either lost to male players in similar exhibition matches or stated outright that they simply couldn’t beat the male players due to physical differences.
Riggs defeated Margaret Court, then world No. 1 and one of King’s fiercest rivals, 6-2, 6-1, who defeated him four months later.
In 2013, Serena Williams, now a 23-time Grand Slam champion, told a US television chat show hosted by David Letterman that Andy Murray, who had just won the second of three career Grand Slams at Wimbledon that year, would beat her “6-0, 6-0 in five or six minutes”.
Speaking at a press conference at the recent WTA Tour Finals, the season-ending tournament for eight of the best women in the world, Sabalenka herself said: “If I were to play against someone who’s been on tour and has games on their hands, I probably wouldn’t have as many opportunities.”
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She also acknowledged King’s legacy in women’s sports in a statement before the event.
Duguid this week described Sabalenka’s opponent as a “controversial figure in tennis” but “definitely not out of date”, and also described Kyrgios as “a friend of women’s tennis or women’s sport”.
In 2023, Kyrgios pleaded guilty to common assault on his then-girlfriend Chiara Passari two years ago, a charge that was later dismissed in an Australian court. He has also been criticized for his comments about women in tennis. The next year, Kyrgios was warned for writing “second serve” under a photo of himself and another ex: ATP Tour star Jannik Sinner’s then-girlfriend, WTA top 40 player Anna Kalinskaya.
In 2015, the Australian was also fined $10,000 after he told Stan Wawrinka that men’s player Thanasi Kokkinakis “beat his girlfriend” during a match in Montreal, Canada. Kyrgios later apologized for the remarks on Facebook, writing: “My comments were made in the heat of the moment and are unacceptable on so many levels.”
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Kyrgios described his growing maturity in interviews ahead of the event, telling the BBC he was “proud of who I am today”. Duguid is adamant that both players’ involvement and the appearance fees they receive for their participation will be positive for women’s sport.
“If Sabalenka is playing a really high-profile, high-profile tournament and it’s competitive, why wouldn’t that be a good thing for women’s tennis?”
One player with first-hand experience of such events is Karsten Braasch, the mercurial German who found himself up against 16- and 17-year-old versions of Serena and Venus Williams at the 1998 Australian Open.
“You know when you respond to something without thinking?” Brash said in a phone interview. “I said, ‘Why don’t you try it?’ I was ranked 203 (world ranking at the time).”
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Brash, then 30, met the challenge of the Williams sisters and the pair went to the ATP Tour offices at the Melbourne Grand Slam to ask if they could play against the men. He will take on Serena for no money in a match designed to test the sisters’ theoretical confidence rather than a referendum on the state of women’s sport.
The sisters had won a doubles match at the Australian Open the day before. In a subsequent press conference, Serena accidentally revealed that she has another “big game” tomorrow. The press was in disarray. She quickly calmed down.
“I’m playing a man,” Serena said.
“Then it started getting pretty big,” Brash recalled. “Otherwise we’d be playing on the last pitch in Australia and probably not many people would notice.”
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There were only a few hundred fans and players in the stands that day, and a large media crowd gathered to cover what was supposed to be a game only against Serena.
Brush was leading 5-0 after losing to Lindsay Davenport in three sets in the quarterfinals when Venus arrived to watch. When Brasch won 6-1, Venus replaced Serena in an attempt to avenge her sister’s defeat. The second game had a similar result, ending 6-2, and Brasch became famous and, over time, the Williams sisters became two of the greatest players in women’s tennis.
When Brash returned to the dressing room, he met eventual 14-time Grand Slam champion Pete Sampras, who congratulated him on his success. “I didn’t see you there,” Brash said, confused. Sampras explained that he was watching the Australian Open in his hotel room. During a break on the home court, Australia’s Channel 7 broadcast his game.
“It’s not a disaster for women’s tennis. It’s fun; they’re challenging someone on the men’s tour and they get beat and that’s it. It’s not a big deal,” Brash said. “I later found out that this was more or less just for the history books… We shouldn’t be comparing men’s and women’s sports.”
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Brash believes that if Sabalenka wins, then only the men’s tour can lose in this match, and he joins many voices in the tennis world in describing it as an exhibition match that belies its title.
“The ‘Battle of the Sexes’ goes against what we’re seeing and what we’re trying to change in society, let alone in sports,” Steve Martin, sports and entertainment marketing executive and founder, said in a phone interview.
“I think when they used the name it conjured up the idea that it was a big deal, but I’m not sure. I think they were clearly trying to reframe something that was already there to give it some credibility, because it felt like a very contrived event – kind of like a stunt rather than having any real depth or purpose.”
Duguid agreed with Martin that the game was “more about entertainment” than sport.
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He drew some inspiration for the event from boxing, specifically the influence former YouTuber and influencer Jake Paul had on the sport. The American was last seen spending five rounds dodging two-time heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua before stopping in the sixth round with a broken jaw.
“That’s our North Star for this tournament,” Duguid said. “I think it’s very much a reflection of what we’re trying to do, similar to the Jake Paul match, which again is unappealing to some people, but I think the numbers don’t lie” – which is consistent with Kyrgios and Sabalenka’s overwhelming view that this match is the reason their game itself exists, although women’s tennis will go into 2026 dealing with the fallout from the result.
King’s point is equally clear.
“Our aim is social change; culturally speaking, where we were in 1973. But not this time,” she told the BBC in an interview.
“It’s just different.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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