Women’s tennis no longer needs another Battle of Sexes

Original article in Chinese, published on 翻滚坚果Rolling Nut.

On December 28, the 2025 edition of tennis’s “Battle of the Sexes” concluded with Aryna Sabalenka losing 3–6, 3–6 to Nick Kyrgios. This exhibition match had attracted significant attention and controversy months long before it was played, yet the game itself offered far less entertainment than the players had promised and the audiences had expected.

In 1973, the original Battle of the Sexes between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs became a milestone in sports history, paving the way for the then-newly established WTA Tour. Today, professional tennis has long achieved prize-money equality between men and women at top-tier events, including all four Grand Slams, and women’s tennis has grown into one of the most commercially successful and widely followed women’s sports in the world. Against this backdrop, what, if anything, can a modern remake of the Battle of the Sexes still offer women’s tennis and women’s sports?

Two matches, same title, but vastly different meanings

The 2025 Battle of the Sexes was the brainchild of Stuart Duguid, the shared agent of Sabalenka and Kyrgios. Duguid believed the match was “about respect, rivalry and reimagining what equality in sport can look like”. Evolve, the agency of both players, also sought to frame the event as a sequel to the iconic 1973 match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

In the 1973 match, the then-29-year-old Billie Jean King defeated 55-year-old former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs in straight sets. Prior to the match, Riggs had publicly claimed that men’s tennis players deserved higher prize money and challenged Margaret Court, who had recently returned to competition after giving birth. King initially declined Riggs’s first challenge, but after Riggs defeated Court and continued to openly belittle women’s tennis, King eventually agreed to play and secured a historic win for women’s sports.

At the time, women’s tennis players were significantly underpaid, and in many other sports, women’s events were not even considered seriously. Women’s participation in sport was also far lower than that of men. King’s victory not only brought legitimacy and momentum to the fledgling WTA Tour, laying the foundation for its future development, but also carried powerful symbolic meaning for women’s sport, which was still fighting for visibility and survival.

Reflecting on the weight she carried into the match, King later said:
“I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self-esteem..”

Contrastingly, the 2025 match between Sabalenka and Kyrgios had little to do with equality. Instead, it functioned primarily as a spectacle — something to be consumed, debated, and judged by audiences. Even if women’s tennis nowadays already achieves equal pay at most events, has its own stars, and possesses substantial commercial value, women players are once again pulled back into a comparison with men, asked to prove their worth by beating a man.

Duguid’s notion of “reimagining equality” was reflected mainly in the match’s modified rules, which were designed to limit Kyrgios while favoring Sabalenka. The PR materials for the 2025 match cited so-called “scientific research,” vaguely claiming that women players have inferior movement capacities. On this basis, Sabalenka’s court coverage was reduced, and Kyrgios’s power advantage was also leveraged by setting no second serve in the match.

Such rule modifications implicitly assume an inherent physical deficiency in women athletes. As a result, regardless of whether Sabalenka won or lost, the match was unlikely to generate any benefits for women’s tennis. Even if Sabalenka had won the match, it could easily have been dismissed as the product of favorable conditions rather than athletic merit, making it difficult to translate the win into broader, structural recognition of women’s tennis.

Controversy beyond the match results

Since the concept of the new Battle of the Sexes was unveiled in September 2025, it sparked widespread debate and criticism within the tennis world. Beyond the rule design implicitly assuming women athletes’ physical inferiority, the decision to choose Kyrgios as Sabalenka’s opponent is also highly controversial.

Duguid has described Kyrgios as a “friend of women’s tennis and women’s sport.” In reality, however, Kyrgios’s public image has long been closely associated with a lack of respect toward women. He has a documented history of domestic assault allegations that led to court proceedings, and he has repeatedly made misogynistic remarks about women players and women’s tennis. Even if Kyrgios maintains friendly relationships with certain women players, and even if he praised Sabalenka after the match as a tough opponent, it is difficult to credibly label him a “friend of women’s tennis.”

Additionally, Kyrgios, hampered by injuries, only played seven matches over the past three seasons. Meanwhile, Sabalenka had a successful season as a Grand Slam winner and world no. 1 in 2025. Setting a match line-up between a peak women’s player and an out-of-form men’s player further exposes the match’s underlying disregard for women’s tennis.

This setup interestingly echoes the 1973 Battle of the Sexes, in which Billie Jean King also faced a long-retired Riggs. Yet in today’s context, the inherent discrimination and absurdity of such matchups are far more evident.

Despite repeated claims by the organizers and both players that the new Battle of the Sexes was purely for entertainment, in reality, however, the outcome was quite different. Kyrgios was able to exit the spectacle largely unscathed, while Sabalenka was left to face heightened scrutiny and criticism, regardless of her performance.

Do women’s sports still need another “Battle of the Sexes”?

The 1973 Battle of the Sexes carried undeniable historical significance. Yet today, as women’s tennis and other women’s sports continue to develop independently, it is worth asking whether women’s sport still needs to demonstrate its value through another “Battle of the Sexes.”

Before the Sabalenka-Kyrgios match, former WTA world No. 1 Garbiñe Muguruza spoke in an interview about the frustration she felt when playing practice matches against male hitting partners.

“How can it be that I can’t win a set against someone who isn’t even a professional player, someone who’s just a sparring?” she asked.

Based on Muguruza’s own experience, the gap between men's and women’s players is substantial. “The difference is huge. It’s not just power — physically… the muscles, the stamina a man has to play a match… There are so many things. I have two brothers, and I’ve never beaten them.”

Men and women indeed differ in physical attributes such as strength, speed, and endurance. But these differences do not indicate that men’s tennis is inherently superior to women’s tennis, nor that men’s matches are inherently more entertaining. They certainly do not justify greater attention, higher prize money, or better treatment for men’s tennis.

Beyond physical differences, it is crucial to recognize that tennis, like most competitive sports, is historically gender-segregated. Women’s tennis is not a “weaker version” of men’s tennis; it is a competitive system that has evolved naturally in accordance with women’s physical characteristics. The tactics, strategies, and shot-making in women’s tennis have their own distinct logic and appeal.

Moreover, women’s sports generally have shorter histories and historically and structurally less support from sports science research. The logic of Battle of the Sexes matchups, directly pitting female athletes against men, ignores the gendered structure of competitive sport, biological differences between sexes, and historical inequalities in sports. As a result, such contests cannot meaningfully or fairly measure the true value of women’s sport.

In 1973, Billie Jean King’s match against Riggs was a necessary but also somewhat forced act of self-validation for women’s sport. But as we re-examine women’s sport today, now steadily growing and evolving, we may need to move beyond constant comparison with men. Men’s sport is not inherently “better”; in many cases, it simply benefits from a longer history, more mature systems, and greater institutional privilege.

Continually evaluating women’s sport through male standards reinforces long-standing gender hierarchies in sport and obscures the intrinsic value and rich narratives of women’s competition. Women’s sport has its own iconic matches, compelling stories, and cultural significance. Its worth does not depend on how closely it resembles men’s sport or on whether it can defeat men, but on its own stories and cultural significances.