Women’s world number one Aryna Sabalenka will take on Australian maverick Nick Kyrgios in a “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition match in Dubai on December 28, organisers announced on Tuesday.

Sabalenka, 27, will face Kyrgios in a modern rendition of tennis icon Billie Jean King’s 1973 showdown with fellow American Bobby Riggs, which turned out to be a watershed moment for both tennis and the women’s movement.

Played in Houston’s Astrodome, the game was watched by some 90 million who tuned in worldwide to see King storm to a straight-sets victory that propelled the fight for equality in sports.

Aged 55 at the time, Riggs had beaten Australia’s Margaret Court four months earlier before King, aged 29, exacted revenge.

In 1992, eight-time Grand Slam champion Jimmy Connors, then aged 40, beat

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