Tennis Battle of the Sexes 2025 Betting Preview – Can Sabalenka Beat Kyrgios in Dubai?

Here is a quick rundown of the rules for this Battle of the Sexes tennis match:

• The players will get just one serve, to offset Kyrgios’ power advantage.
• The court will be 9% smaller on Sabalenka’s side, as the event organizers, Evolve, found that women move 9% slower than men on tennis courts.
• It will be two sets, with a tiebreak (essentially, a third set) if needed, where the winner has to get to ten points, but they have to win by two points.

This was the first Battle of the Sexes tennis match, between 55-year-old Bobby Riggs and 30-year-old Margaret Court. Riggs challenged Billie Jean King first, but she turned the $20,000 offer down.

Court accepted to play Riggs, who won 6-2, 6-1. Riggs used the publicity from what was called the “Mother’s Day Massacre” to call out any female player.

29-year-old King accepted the challenge from King. There was a $100,000 winner-take-all offer, and King pulled off the upset, beating Riggs, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. King made Riggs run all over the court, and at 55 years old, he couldn’t keep up.

Over 50 million watched the match on ABC in the United States, and the worldwide number was 90 million! In 2017, the film, Battle of the Sexes, was loosely based on this match, and it starred Emma Stone and Steve Carell.

The most recent tennis Battle of the Sexes match was dubbed the “Battle of Champions” came in September 1992. Connors was 40 at the times, while Navratilova was 35. Both players received $650,000, and the winner would receive an extra $500,000 for this pay-per-view event.

Connors won 7-5, 6-2, and wrote in his autobiography that he bet $1 million on himself to lose less than eight games.

Kyrgios has had a tumultuous career, and there is a concern that he hasn’t gotten the most out of it. He had a high ATP ranking of 13^th in October 2016, but has slipped all the way down to 666^th as of November 28, 2025.

He has never won a Grand Slam singles title, and has gotten past the fourth round just four times in 32 attempts. Kyrgios made it to three quarterfinals, and reached the final of Wimbledon in 2022, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in four sets. However, Kyrgios did win a Grand Slam doubles title with fellow Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Australian Open in 2022.

The 30-year-old Aussie has battled injuries recently, and last played at the Miami Open in March 2025. He won his first-round match against Mackenzie McDonald, but lost to Karen Khachanov in the second round. He also played doubles with Gaël Monfils at the D.C. Open in Washington in July 2025, where the duo made it to the Round of 16, but lost to Hugo Nys and Édouard Roger-Vasselin.

Injury and rust have to be a concern with Kyrgios. The lack of activity has surely hurt Kyrgios’ game. There is also the matter of how seriously he’ll take this. The one major knock on Kyrgios over his career is that he hasn’t taken tennis as seriously as he should. He had all the talent to be a top-five player in the world, but just never seemed to get it together for a sustained amount of time.

I’m skeptical of the Kyrgios-Sabalenka odds favoring Kyrgios so much. He hasn’t been healthy, he hasn’t played, and who knows what kind of mood he’ll be in on December 28 in Dubai?/info

Sabalenka has been the world’s #1 since October 21, 2024, and had a terrific 2025! She won the most tournaments (four), and made it to the most finals (nine). She reached three Grand Slam finals, winning at the U.S. Open for the second straight year, and was in the semifinals in all four tournaments. However, she did come up short at the WTA Finals, losing to Elena Rybakina.

The 27-year-old Belarusian has a powerful serve, which has reached over 200 km/h, and she was sixth on the WTA Tour in aces. She is great from the baseline, and she has gotten more consistent with her groundstrokes. Sabalenka should look to make Kyrgios run, as it’s not certain how fit he is.

Sabalenka has also improved how she plays in big matches, but like Kyrgios, it’s a matter of how seriously she takes this. The match could take on a larger, sociopolitical importance. But Sabalenka (and Kyrgios) could look at this as a fun exhibition.

That said, I think the world’s #1 has a shot in this game, and I think there’s  some value in her tennis Battle of the Sexes odds!