Dubai has signalled a rematch of a cultural moment, but this time the players, the rules and the hashtags are doing most of the talking.
The centrepiece is Aryna Sabalenka versus Nick Kyrgios at the Coca-Cola Arena, an exhibition billed as a modern Battle of the Sexes that has divided opinion because of altered rules, background controversy and the scale of online reaction likely to follow.
A modern Battle with old echoes
Billie Jean King’s 1973 win over Bobby Riggs felt like a social earthquake, watched by an estimated 90million people and framed as something much larger than sport, though the new event in Dubai aims explicitly for entertainment rather than social manifesto.
Sabalenka is hardly a relic from the King era; she is a global brand who plays to fans and sponsors, with a large online following of 1.2million on TikTok and a further 4million on Instagram, blending celebrity and sport in a distinctly 21st century way.
The match itself has been tweaked to limit advantage: each player gets only one serve, Sabalenka’s half-court will be reduced by 9 percent, and it will be best-of-three sets with a 10-point match tiebreak if needed, designed to blunt Kyrgios’s power and keep things tight for the crowd.
Kyrgios arrives with headline-grabbing history and patchy recent form; Sporting News reports he is currently ranked 671 in the world after injury troubles and played only a handful of matches this year, which complicates any simple comparison of their on-court credentials.
“It was 1973 and it was a huge, huge moment in the United States.”
Billie Jean King
The rules, the optics and the trapdoors
Critics say the rules feel patronising and risk turning Sabalenka into a spectacle, while supporters argue they are a pragmatic attempt to create a competitive, TV-friendly contest between a top woman and an intermittently active man.
Andrea Petkovic warned it is a tricky cultural tightrope, arguing that attempts to make the event political will harm the player regardless of the result, because any win will be downplayed and any loss will invite harsher ridicule online.
Sabalenka herself has embraced the showmanship and the stakes in equal measure; on US television she said bluntly, “I’m going to kick his a**,” a line that feeds the hype while also serving as predictable click fodder for those looking for division rather than nuance.
What it means for the women’s game and broadcast reach
There is a real fear that a loss could be weaponised by misogynists online in a way unseen in 1973, because the modern match is not only played in an arena but on social platforms where abuse can reach Sabalenka directly and relentlessly.
On the flip side, the event is a marketing success: it raises Sabalenka’s profile internationally and draws curious viewers to tennis, which the sport sorely needs as it seeks fresh superstars following the Williams era and the ongoing dominance of a handful of men and women.
There are geopolitical complications, too; Sabalenka’s Belarusian roots and past photographed links to Lukashenko add awkward context that she has publicly tried to repudiate, while her switch to boutique agency Evolve has tied her career to the very team that helped engineer this matchup.
For viewers wanting to watch, Sporting News set first serve for Sunday, Dec. 28 at 11 a.m. ET, with the match televised on Tennis Channel and streamable on platforms such as Fubo, making the spectacle accessible across big screens and phones alike.
Whatever happens in Dubai, the event will be judged on multiple fronts: the quality of tennis, the fairness of the rules, the tone of the commentary around it and whether the match helps broaden tennis’s audience rather than narrowing the conversation to online vitriol.
Sabalenka insists she is not merely along for the ride. “I’m serious about this,” she said recently. “When I step on court, I want to win – no matter what the format,” words that underline her competitive focus despite the entertainment packaging.
Expect the contest to feel part exhibition, part laboratory for touring ideas about merging men’s and women’s tennis spectacle, and entirely staged for a modern media cycle that thrives on polarisation and personality as much as on points and sets.
Join the conversation on Facebook.
Christoph Friedrich is a German tennis player and coach currently residing in Oakland, California. He began his tennis journey at the age of eight and has since dedicated his life to the sport. After working as a tennis coach and hitting partner in New York City for eight years, Christoph decided to share his knowledge and experience with tennis players around the world by creating the My Tennis Expert blog. His goal is to make tennis education accessible to everyone and help players select the best equipment for their game, from racquets and strings to shoes and overgrips. Christoph's extensive research and expertise in tennis technology make him a valuable resource for players of all levels.
