Keystone SDA | Saturday, November 2nd, 2024
At the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka (WTA 1) and Poland’s Iga Swiatek (2) will fight to see who will end the season as number 1. Before the tournament, the advantages lie with Sabalenka.
Aryna Sabalenka, the winner of this year’s two hard-court Grand Slam tournaments (Australian Open and US Open), will end a year as number 1 for the first time if she wins all group games or reaches the final. The starting position for Iga Swiatek is more complicated: In order to make up the 1046 points gap to Sabalenka, the French Open winner has to win the tournament and hope that Sabalenka doesn’t win all the group games and doesn’t reach the final.
Iga Swiatek could end a year as world number 1 for the third time: For comparison: Steffi Graf and Novak Djokovic achieved this eight times each, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal five times each.
It’s a lot of money
In the group stage, Sabalenka will face the Italian Jasmine Paolini (WTA 4), the Kazakh Jelena Rybakina (WTA 5) and the Chinese Zheng Qinwen (WTA 7). Swiatek will face the Americans Coco Gauff (WTA 3) and Jessica Pegula (WTA 6) as well as the Czech Barbora Krejcikova (WTA 13).
The WTA Finals are taking place for the first time in Saudi Arabia and in Riyadh, where the week before last, on the occasion of the “Six Kings Slam”, almost 20 million dollars were invested in a show tournament under Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune were divided. Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza, a former world number 1, is the tournament director. She has the delicate task of portraying the tournament in a good light after it was revealed this week that spectators were being bused to events for a fee to make it appear the stadium was full.
Muguruza’s task is complicated, even if she emphasizes that all the players are excited about the tournament and that she has heard “only positive things” so far. The legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova recently criticized the fact that the WTA is moving its biggest event to a country that is accused of regularly violating human rights, especially women’s rights.
More and more influence
One thing is clear: money plays no role in Saudi Arabia. After Formula 1 (Grand Prix), football, golf (LIV Tour) and horse riding (World Cup final), Saudi Arabia is also gaining massive influence in tennis thanks to Moneten. There has been a strategic partnership with the ATP since February. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund appears, among other things, as the name sponsor of the ATP world rankings and as an official partner in major tournaments. The Next Gen Finals, the annual final of the best professionals under the age of 21, will take place in Jeddah.
Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in sport for years. The official goals of the state plan “Vision 2030” are the diversification of the economy, less dependence on oil, opening up the country to tourists and attractive offers for its own population. But the kingdom is also accused of wanting to use its involvement in sport to distract attention from human rights violations and to improve its image.
