WTA Tour star Eva Lys believes the \u2018Battle of the Sexes\u2019 showdown between Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios could make tennis more \u201cpopular\u201d, despite also calling the event a \u201chuge PR stunt\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reigning WTA world No 1 Sabalenka<\/a>, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, will take on Kyrgios<\/a> in a high-profile and highly publicised showdown on December 28 in Dubai, with the match already proving to be a huge talking point.<\/p>\n The two have engaged in a set of high-profile interviews to promote the match, including with Piers Morgan Uncensored<\/em> and BBC Sport<\/em>.<\/p>\n Several past and present players have questioned the event, including the likes of Billie Jean King \u2014 who famously played Bobby Riggs in a 1973 \u2018Battle of the Sexes\u2019 match \u2014 and former WTA world No 1 Garbine Muguruza, with Sabalenka and Kyrgios defending their participation<\/a>.<\/p>\n A handful of current players have also been asked about the match between Sabalenka and Kyrgios, with Lys<\/a> recently asked about her thoughts in a new interview with Sport1<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Currently the top-ranked German on the WTA Tour, a career-best year saw the 23-year-old finish the 2025 season ranked 40th in the world, and be nominated for the WTA Newcomer of the Year Award.<\/p>\n Asked whether the clash between Sabalenka and Kyrgios could hurt women\u2019s tennis, Lys claimed that she could not assess whether the exhibition was \u201cgreat\u201d for the sport or not until it had taken place.<\/p>\n She said (translated from German): \u201cI have mixed feelings about it, but generally speaking, I think Aryna Sabalenka is very good for women\u2019s tennis. She pushes the boundaries and has moments that are unusual in the sport.<\/p>\n 2025 WTA Tour Awards: Sabalenka vs Swiatek best player battle decided as Anisimova, Mboko win prizes<\/a><\/p>\n \u2018Maybe 2026 is her time\u2019 \u2013 Elena Rybakina told she \u2018should have won 2-3 more Grand Slams\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no secret that it\u2019s a huge PR stunt to draw more attention to tennis. Who else could you pull something like that off with? Nick Kyrgios, of course. I think they\u2019re a perfect match.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to take it with a grain of salt. Tennis is still a sport that\u2019s taken a bit too seriously. You get matches like this in all the other sports that aren\u2019t taken so seriously.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have to wait and see what the reactions will be. I can\u2019t say whether it will be great for the sport or controversial \u2014 but it\u2019s a start to making the sport more popular in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n The encounter between Sabalenka and Kyrgios will take place inside Dubai\u2019s Coca-Cola Arena and will have high-profile coverage online and on television, with the showdown set to be shown live on BBC Television in Great Britain.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>: Exclusive \u2013 What made Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova & Justine Henin so good? WTA star who played them reveals<\/a><\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka & Nick Kyrgios Battle of the Sexes called \u2018huge PR stunt\u2019 by WTA star<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WTA Tour star Eva Lys believes the \u2018Battle of the Sexes\u2019 showdown between Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios could make tennis more \u201cpopular\u201d, despite also calling the event a \u201chuge PR stunt\u201d. Reigning WTA world No 1 Sabalenka, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, will take on Kyrgios in a high-profile and highly publicised showdown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n