So this is how it begins, the “Riyadh Season”: with six kings and their tennis rackets. The country’s autumn entertainment season is set to begin on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia’s capital, at a newly built hall called “The Venue.” Over the next few months, according to organizers, there will be food from all over the world, “countless surprises” – and highlights such as a UFC fight, a fashion event by designer Elie Saab and an edition of “Power Slap”, a competition in which athletes compete in how well they can slap the other person.
All of this is organized by the “General Entertainment Authority”, the state body for entertainment. The fact that the opening stage of this illustrious series of events is given over to the tennis players and their “<a href="https://www.archysport.com/2024/02/a-new-exhibition-tournament-in-saudi-arabia-with-novak-djokovic-and-rafael-nadal/" title="A new exhibition tournament in Saudi Arabia with Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal”>Six Kings Slam” is evidence of the great importance that the classic sports already have in the kingdom and will have even more in the future: football, tennis, golf, boxing, in the future The Olympics – what works in western world sport has long since also taken place in Saudi Arabia, which wants to become one of the hubs of the sporting world. And tennis is the current object of desire.
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Six players are therefore taking part in a three-day exhibition match in the desert state: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have already been confirmed as semi-finalists and will only take part on Thursday. In the previous round, world number one Jannik Sinner and Daniil Medvedev as well as Holger Rune and Carlos Alcaraz duel. Everyone was introduced in a Hollywood-style trailer with special effects – only Roger Federer was missing, and it is still not known whether he will be there as a spectator in Riyadh. In any case, the players are paid royally: everyone gets 1.5 million US dollars as an entry fee, and the winner gets another six million US dollars on top of that. That’s twice as much prize money as for the title at the US Open.
It is therefore financially understandable that the six invited candidates are heading into the desert, even though many tennis professionals are currently complaining about the busy tournament calendar. There is also another opportunity for a duel with Nadal: The fact that the Spaniard – ambassador for the Saudi Arabian Tennis Association – will play one of his final career matches in Riyadh is a coup for the event. For this reason alone, nobody at the broadcaster Dazn should be worried that the show tournament might not receive enough attention.
Nadal’s participation was of such great importance to the Saudi organizers that they apparently moved the Kings Slam specifically for the Spaniard. It was originally planned for the spring and was pushed back to October after Nadal was injured again, the British reported Telegraph. It was probably no coincidence that the choice fell on this week.
The show tournament in Riyadh has a strange rule
The calendar design in tennis is at least as complicated as in many other sports, the basic rules are stipulated by the ATP players’ union: professionals from the top 30 in the world rankings are not allowed to compete in exhibition matches in weeks in which 500 or 1000 events are held on the ATP tour -Points class takes place. That’s the case this week; However, the small 250-point tournaments in Antwerp and Stockholm would probably have had to forego the participation of the six kings anyway.
It is not the only rule that had to be observed in Saudi Arabia: If players compete in show tournaments that last longer than three days, their so-called “Platinum Status” on the ATP tour, which is given to the best Players have access to special payments at the end of the season – which is why the Six Kings Slam quickly introduced a break day on Friday.
One thing is obvious: in Saudi Arabia they don’t want to upset the ATP in the long term, at best they want to put them under pressure by luring the best players to Riyadh, sometimes for record sums. This is intended to show that the real power is where the money lives – without endangering the good relationships with ATP boss Andrea Gaudenzi, for example. The interest in even more intensive cooperation has been confirmed by both sides; on the one hand, it involves billions in investments, and on the other hand, in addition to the women’s season finale, a Masters series tournament (1000 world ranking points) will soon be held in Saudi Arabia. The sovereign wealth fund PIF is already involved as a sponsor and presents, among other things, the “PIF ATP Ranking”, the world ranking. But that won’t be enough in the long run.
The example of golf has shown what happens when a sport refuses to cooperate with Saudi Arabia: The PIF invested in its own, newly founded tour and brought the best players to its side for hundreds of millions. A scenario that could be avoided in tennis if the big financiers were given a seat at the table. The fact that you have to accept that you have to work with a country that, despite all its modernization projects, continues to have to deal with allegations of human rights violations is obviously negligible.
The “Riyadh Season” could soon become the Saudi era in tennis from the ATP. Sportswashing has long been accepted for this, by the six kings with their tennis rackets as well as in the royal family. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s statement that he “doesn’t care” about such accusations remains a defining feature – as long as his gross domestic product benefits from sport.
