{"id":24215,"date":"2026-01-04T07:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/battle-of-the-sexes-was-not-needed-as-womens-tennis-stands-on-its-own-iga-swiatek\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T07:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:06:24","slug":"battle-of-the-sexes-was-not-needed-as-womens-tennis-stands-on-its-own-iga-swiatek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/battle-of-the-sexes-was-not-needed-as-womens-tennis-stands-on-its-own-iga-swiatek\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Battle of the Sexes’ was not needed as women’s tennis ‘stands on its own’ – Iga Swiatek"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek says tennis did not need the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka as the women’s game “stands on its own”.<\/b><\/p>\n

Women’s number one Sabalenka and male player Kyrgios faced off in a highly publicised exhibition<\/a> in Dubai a week ago.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios won the match – played on a modified court designed to provide a level playing field – in straight sets.<\/p>\n

But Swiatek says tennis has come a long way since the original ‘Battle of the Sexes’<\/a> between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973 which highlighted the women’s game fighting for legitimacy and prize money.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t watched [Sabalenka v Kyrgios] because I don’t watch stuff like that,” the world number two said.<\/p>\n

“I think for sure it attracted a lot of attention. It was entertainment, but I wouldn’t say that had anything to do with social change or any important topics.<\/p>\n

“I think the name was just the same as the one from the Billie Jean King match in ’73. That’s it. There were no more similarities because I feel like women’s tennis stands on its own right now.<\/p>\n

“We have so many great athletes and great stories to present, we don’t necessarily need to compare to men’s tennis.<\/p>\n

“Honestly, there doesn’t need to be any competition.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek says tennis did not need the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka as the women’s game “stands on its own”. Women’s number one Sabalenka and male player Kyrgios faced off in a highly publicised exhibition in Dubai a week ago. Kyrgios won the match – played on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24217,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24215\/revisions\/24217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}