The city of Riyadh will host the WTA Finals, the tournament that brings together the eight best tennis players in the world at the end of the season, in 2024, 2025 and 2026. The next edition will be held from November 2 to 9. The Saudis have taken over the venue of the tournament that crowns the season’s champion after the 2023 edition in Cancun (Mexico) was an organizational chaos.
After the four finals held between 2014 and 2018 in Singapore, the tournament had different venues: Shenzhen (China) in 2019, Guadalajara (Mexico) in 2021, Fort Worth (United States) in 2022 and Cancún in 2023. The covid pandemic and The case of Shuai Peng, who disappeared after reporting sexual abuse by a former leader of the Chinese party, distanced the WTA from China and forced it to look for a new permanent headquarters, which will now be Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia will offer a record prize pool of 12 million pounds, about 15 million euros. The decision, however, is full of controversy because figures such as Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, legends of this sport with 18 Grand Slams each, criticized the WTA for selling one of the most important tournaments in the world to a country in which homosexuality is a crime.
The first official tournament
Saudi Arabia thus achieves its first official tournament after holding the Next Gen Finals in Jeddah in 2023. Over the years it has hosted different exhibitions, such as the one played by Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz last December or the one Ons Jabeur and Aryna Sabalenka competed in 2023, in addition to the Six Kings Slams that Rafael Nadal, Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Holger Rune, Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev will play in October.
The next step for the Saudi country, which through the PIF fund is one of the main investors in the ATP, is to acquire a Masters 1,000, which would be held before the Australian Open in January.
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2024-04-04 13:51:04
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