Like the suspect King vs Riggs Battle of Sexes political event five decades ago in 1973 was whispered to be a fix, the forthcoming Nick Kyrgios vs Aryna Sabalenka chash has some suspicious elements.
I have been told countless times by tennis insiders that Riggs tanked to King for gambling benefits. It’s practically an open secret. King promised then re-negged on the rematch with Riggs – there’s only one reason why she would break her word and it doesn’t have to be said.
So now Kyrgios is in the pressure situation of being expexted to win and he is already saying in the pre-match hype interviews that he will “be tight” playing Aryna. But how can he know that already and why would he confess it publicly? Or is it a code for laying the foundation excuse for the loss?
Sabalenka played an exhibition last week in Newark, NJ and did an on court post match interview and actually joked, “I already know I’m going to win” when asked by the interviewer about the big match with Nick.
A deeper analysis of the showdown reveals that Kyrgios is compromised. He just lost his sponsorship with Nike and he lost his two TV analyst jobs this year with ESPN and BBC. Combine that with the fact Nick hasn’t won any matches this year to generate income and you have a player ripe to take a dive. Sabalenka has been ranked no. 1 in the world all year 2025 and has earned an estimated $30m this year. Guess who has the leverage?
By the way, both Sabalenka and Kyrgios have the same agent (Stuart Duguid).
Prize money and appearance fees have not been revealed to the public or media.
Today Kyrgios is -500 while Sabalenka is the decided underdog at +325.
Each player will only get one serve in the December 28th match at Coca Cola Arena in Dubai
Aryna Sabalenka · Nick Kyrgios