Tennis Legend Patrick McEnroe Claims He Can Beat Aryna Sabalenka

Tennis legend Patrick McEnroe thinks he still has what it takes to beat a World No. 1 on the court.

On the Friday, April 4, episode of his Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe radio show, the former tennis pro took a call from a listener, who asked McEnroe if he could beat the current top women’s tennis player, Aryna Sabalenka.

McEnroe, 59, didn’t answer the question directly — instead using a metaphor of a basketball team of 15-year-old boys competing against a WNBA team — before eventually suggesting that he thinks he could take on Sabalenka.

“What would happen if … the best 15-year-old boys played against the top WNBA team?” McEnroe asked the caller.

Related: Iga Swiatek Dismisses Controversial ‘Battle of the Sexes’ Tennis Match

Tennis star Iga Swiatek did not mince words when talking about the controversial “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Aryna Sabalenka and Nick Kyrgios. While attending a press conference before the United Cup in Australia on Friday, January 2, the six-time Grand Slam champion said the questionable match was not necessary because “women’s tennis […]

“They’d beat them, easily,” the caller responded. McEnroe agreed.

“It doesn’t matter to me because it’s just a different game,” McEnroe continued. “The short answer is that I was a decent pro as a journeyman type player, ranked most of my career between 30 and 75, 100, whatever it was. But if you took the top junior player in the world, the top 17-year-old and put him up against Sabalenka, they beat her 6-1, 6-1.”

He added, “But again to me it’s irrelevant. I don’t say that to denigrate women … because I love women’s tennis. I’ll watch that if there’s a great matchup more than I’ll watch a men’s blowout match. It’s just a totally different game. And tennis for some reason, people don’t look at it the same way because they see Madison Keys or Sabalenka hit their forehand as hard as [Jannik] Sinner. Well, they’re not hitting it with the same spin and the movement’s different. But anyway, that’s neither here nor there.”

Sabalenka, 27, is the current World No. 1 in women’s tennis, coming off back-to-back US Open championships. She’s also a two-time Australian Open champion and a French Open finalist.

In December 2025, she competed against Nick Kyrgios in the modern version of the “Battle of the Sexes,” an ode to the legendary 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

Kyrgios won the match in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, in a spectacle that led to much ridicule from fans and other pro tennis players because of its bending of the tennis rules.

Despite the loss, Sabalenka said she “enjoyed” the match before alluding to a potential rematch against Kyrgios.

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“Really enjoyed the show,” Sabalenka said at the time. “And I feel like next time I play him I’m going to know the tactics, his strengths and his weaknesses, and it’s going to be a better match, for sure.”

Kyrgios shared some positive feedback on Sabalenka and the match as well, adding that he felt the match “could have gone either way.”

“She’s an amazing athlete, when she was moving side to side she was playing shots that some of the top men play,” he said on the court after the match. “I’m not surprised, I’ve seen her play and we have practiced a couple of times. She was right there, it could have gone either way.”