It goes without saying that one of the absolute best aspects of sports is the true David vs. Goliath, underdog-type upset stories.
From the “Miracle on Ice” to Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson to the 18-1 New England Patriots season, upset stories are one of the biggest reasons sports fans tune in.
But notice that in the above examples — and 99 percent of others like them — all of these upsets are confined to the same gender competing against itself?
That’s for a very good reason: There are simply immutable physical differences between men and women. Period.
The most recent iteration of the “Battle of the Sexes” only hammered that point home after the 671st-ranked male, Nick Kyrgios, beat the top-ranked female in the world, Aryna Sabalenka, on Sunday in the United Arab Emirates.
And, as Reuters noted, it wasn’t especially close, with Kyrgios winning 6-3, 6-3 in the highly publicized exhibition match at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai.
And that’s all she wrote!
Nick Kyrgios defeats Aryna Sabalenka to win the Battle of the Sexes 👏 pic.twitter.com/9Yysdt6F5V
— Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel) December 28, 2025
The game was an homage to the extremely rare female-over-male upset in sports: Billie Jean King’s victory over former Grand Slam winner Bobby Riggs in 1973, though it’s worth pointing out that King was 26 years younger than the 55-year-old Riggs in that infamous match-up.
This modern “Battle of the Sexes” featured a much more reasonable age gap, with the 27-year-old Sabalenka facing the 30-year-old Kyrgios, and thus featured a far more expected outcome.
The outcome also led to the expected discourse over the incredibly touchy topic of men playing in women’s sports in 2025.
Nick Kyrgios, who is ranked 671st and has played just six tour-level matches in three years, still easily beat four-time grand slam champion and the world’s top female player Aryna Sabalenka in a ‘battle of the sexes’ display match.
This is why women need single sex sport. pic.twitter.com/Kws4ai9Blt
— Family Education Trust (@FamEdTrust) December 28, 2025
Despite the insistence of certain left-leaning activists, there are significant, notable, and tangible physical differences between men and women.
It’s a difference that’s been proven time and time again — so long as there’s a reasonable age gap between the two sexes.
Take, for instance, perhaps the most infamous example of this, when a pro soccer club’s under-15 boys team beat the U.S. Women’s National Team.
As CBS Sports noted, it wasn’t close (noticing a theme here?) as the teenage boys beat the adult women 5-2.
But at least the soccer match-up happened on an even playing field.
This “Battle of the Sexes II”? The playing field was, quite literally, tilted in the woman’s favor.
According to Reuters, Sabalenka’s side of the court was smaller, giving her less ground to cover and requiring Kyrgios to be far more precise with his shot placement.
Additionally, there was a modified “one-serve-per-point” rule, meaning Kyrgios really couldn’t tap into his raw strength advantage.
And yet, even after the court was shortened, the rules softened, and the format engineered to sand down every natural edge Kyrgios brought to the match, the outcome was still unmistakable. Advantage stacked on advantage, caveat piled onto caveat — and reality still showed up on schedule.
That’s the part activists never quite know what to do with. You can adjust the dimensions, rewrite the rules, and frame the spectacle however you like, but physics remains stubbornly unimpressed. Male athleticism — even the 671st-ranked version of it — doesn’t disappear because it’s inconvenient to the narrative.
“Battle of the Sexes II” wasn’t cruel, disrespectful, or unfair — it was clarifying. The result wasn’t a cultural statement or a political provocation. It was simply a reminder that some differences don’t need to be argued about. They only need to be played out.
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