Women’s world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is set to take on men’s world No. 1292 Nick Kyrgios in a controversial “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match on December 28. The match will be held at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai with ‘altered’ rules for both players. This fixture was met with much controversy online, with many despising this rebranded modern version of Battle of the Sexes matches, with comments describing the match as tone-deaf and a step backwards in terms of progression.

The exhibition match is not the first adaptation of this type of fixture, which has a complex history within tennis. This match layout goes back to the 1970s with the first highly publicised fixture of a man versus a woman featuring Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court, with Riggs defeating Court in straight sets. The most recent match layout, which was played in 1992, when Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova took to the court, with Connors claiming the win in two sets.

A weighted fixture like this brings into question many different social and cultural discussions due to the whole basis of these matches pitting a female athlete against a male athlete. This fixture subconsciously feeds into stereotypes of gender biases in areas such as athletic capability, fairness and media representation. These types of fixtures highlight current social stances and challenge gender equality in sports rather than focusing on tennis performances, which is what it is marketed as. 

According to a recent survey, eight out of ten women found the idea of a “Battle of the sexes” match to be outdated in this current social and political climate. This suggests the cultural change that has occurred in regards to how women want female athletes to be presented. Furthermore, this affirms how a large majority of women aren’t interested in this gender battle which pits the sexes against each other and would rather not engage with a counterproductive fixture.

The outdated match further toys with the gender hierarchy by reinforcing the belief of men’s athletic capability being the ‘benchmark’ which women need to be ‘assessed’ on to see if they can match or challenge this ‘ability’. Participant feedback from a recent survey reveals how this fixture frames female athletes as lacking athletic credibility and sustains the assumption that female athletes must prove they are ‘enough’ and gain validation in a male-centred sports culture to further participate.

The response reveals how this fixture almost places female athletes in a battle of proving their ‘worth’ and subtly seeks validation from audiences to justify female athletes presence playing at a high level, which inherently undermines their ranking and overall accomplishments within tennis. This questioning of female athletes athletic capabilities leans into the reproduction and persistence of patriarchal biases and stereotypes which unjustly haunt female athletes. Respondents also highlighted concerns about how female athletes have ‘come too far’ to be framed within a patriarchal narrative and fixtures like these contradict the modern standards of gender equality within sports.

This further exhibits the underlying consequence of such a fixture, which may have been orchestrated for pure entertainment factors, but again, has serious negative societal and cultural effects which primarily female athletes bear the brunt of. Instead of tackling sexism or trying to create an environment where female athletes are not subjected to comparisons but are celebrated in their own right, this fixture instead promotes sexist and misogynistic narratives which implicitly plague sports culture. Tennis is one of the more female-focused sports, centralising women economically and commercially in comparison to other sports, yet fixtures such as this uncover the underlying gendered biases which are hidden behind all this external ‘progression’. 

While “Battle of the Sexes” fixtures are orchestrated to provide the audience with top-tier entertainment with mixed-gender players, they come with a lot more serious underlying implications. These matches further sustain discriminatory biases and remarks which female athletes have well progressed past the need for. Regardless of the socio-cultural and commercial impact female athletes have brought to tennis, matches like this regress any progress made for a fair and equal environment and overall game of tennis. Within this modern society, fixtures like this serve no advantage to female athletes and the overall progression of tennis as a contemporary sport.