This Sunday, Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios will face off in an exhibition match, called “The Battle of the Sexes”.
It’s a name with a very strong connotation. The “Battle of the Sexes”, which will pit Aryna Sabalenka against Nick Kyrgios on Sunday December 28 in an exhibition match, is a reference to the match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973.
A match that caused a lot of reaction in the tennis world. Casper Ruud, the 12th player in the world, did not mince his words when describing this event to Greg Rusedski: “It’s just a spectacle. If you want to have a real Battle of the Sexes, everyone must play on equal terms. If it’s not the same court, the same dimensions and two services, it’s not really the same thing, right? »
Different rules
If he doesn’t seem convinced by the format, it’s because the two opponents won’t actually play the same way. Sabalenka is expected to have a 9% larger court compared to Kyrgios who, on top of that, will only have one service ball.
If she did not criticize the format of this future confrontation, Billie Jean King did not seem comfortable with the choice of the name of this match. The only thing this “Battle of the Sexes” has in common with hers is “that one of the players is a man and the other is a woman,” she told the BBC.
“I hope it will be a great match and I of course hope that Sabalenka will win – but it’s just not the same thing,” she said, while explaining that her match had a real political and societal issue at a time when women were less considered than today.
And at the time, there was no free pass for Billie Jean King: “I told her ‘listen, either I face you on a regular basis or I don’t face you’ and Bobby loved that” she concluded.
