Arnya Sabalenka is the unquestioned top women’s tennis player in the world at the moment. But 59 year-old Patrick McEnroe thinks she would be no match for, well, himself.

On his SiriusXM radio show, Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe, the longtime tennis player and commentator took a question from a listener on how he would fare in a hypothetical matchup against Sabalenka if he was in top physical condition at his advanced age.

McEnroe brushed off the question, comparing it to matching up a high school boys basketball team against the South Carolina women’s team, suggesting that the boys team would win easily. Therefore, he would in turn defeat Sabalenka easily.

“It doesn’t matter to me because it’s just a different game,” McEnroe said. The short answer is that I was a decent pro as a journeyman type player, ranked most of my career between 30, 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 or something. But again to me it’s irrelevant. I don’t say that to denigrate women’s, 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 Sinner. Well, they’re not hitting it with the same spin and the movement’s different.”

Battle of the Sexes has been a popular tennis topic for decades from Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs to the recent matchup between Nick Kyrgios and Sabalenka.

Kyrgios won that matchup 6-3, 6-3 in straight sets. However, he is currently 30 years old and very close to the prime of his athletic career. Patrick McEnroe is approaching 60 and hasn’t played professional tennis this millennium. And we’re not talking about pickleball here, but an actual tennis match. Could he really keep up with the speed and velocity that Sabalenka could produce?

Although he didn’t say directly that he would comfortably beat Sabalenka, that sure seems to be what he implied. Why he felt the need to go there given how the tennis world is going to react is an interesting decision because it’s immediately going to become a flashpoint.

Usually it’s Patrick’s brother John that makes the brash comments, but now we’re curious to see if he is willing to back up the talk and move from the broadcast booth to the court to test his theory and his self-confidence.