: The season-ending WTA Finals will be kept in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh from 2024-2026, the females’s tennis body stated on Thursday, ending months of speculation and marking the Gulf nation’s newest venture into the sport.
Riyadh will host the season ending – which includes the leading 8 songs gamers and doubles groups – from Nov. 2-9 and changes in 2015’s hosts Cancun, Mexico.
“To have a females’s competition of this magnitude and profile is a specifying minute for tennis in Saudi Arabia. The WTA Finals has the power to influence far beyond the sport, particularly for our girls and ladies,” the Saudi sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal Al-Saud informed Reuters.
Talk that the occasion might be moved to Saudi Arabia had actually magnified after the guys’s ATP Tour stated last August its Next Gen Finals would be kept in Jeddah from 2023 to 2027.
“The WTA chosen Riyadh following a detailed assessment procedure over a number of months, which has actually consisted of evaluation of numerous quotes from various areas and engagement with gamers,” it stated in a declaration.
Saudi Arabia has actually invested greatly in sports like soccer, Formula One and golf in the last couple of years while critics implicate the kingdom of utilizing its Public Investment Fund to “sportswash” its human rights record.
The nation rejects allegations of human rights abuses and states it safeguards its nationwide security through its laws.
WTA primary Steve Simon stated in 2015 that Saudi Arabia provided “huge problems” as a host for ladies’s trip occasions however likewise acknowledged the development it had actually made and continued to engage with gamers.
“Bringing the WTA Finals to Riyadh is an amazing brand-new chance for us and a favorable action for the long-lasting development of ladies’s tennis as a worldwide and inclusive sport,” Simon stated.
“We’ve been impressed by the dedication revealed by the Saudi Tennis Federation to grow the sport at all levels.”
World top Iga Swiatek and Caroline Wozniacki stated at the Australian Open that engagement used the possibility to trigger favorable modification.
There has actually been pushback from within the video game with greats Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova stating the WTA’s worths remained in plain contrast to those of Saudi Arabia and holding the occasion there would not represent development however “considerable regression”.
The nation’s ambassador to the United States Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud stated the criticism represented stereotyped and western-centric views.