For more than a year, the leaders of tennis have been trying to gauge just how serious Saudi Arabia is about getting involved with tennis.
Was the country prepared to mount a takeover and start buying off players, as it did in golf, or was it merely content to hold an exhibition or two? Or perhaps something in between?
There is now little doubt that the country and its sovereign wealth fund, known as the Public Investment Fund (PIF), are intent on pursuing a broad push into the sport at every level. The leaders of the Saudi effort have shifted their attention to working with the top officials in tennis on selling their plan to the public, and they are determined not to let entrenched interests, and even some of the biggest names in the sport, stand in their way.
Saudi Arabia has offered roughly $1billion (£1.3bn) in investment in the sport in exchange for hosting major events — a move that has now become a part of the emerging chess game between the organisers of the Grand Slams and the men’s and women’s tours, in which the sport’s leaders are battling to control tennis.
Among Saudi Arabia’s next steps are finalizing and announcing the pending deal to host the WTA Finals, the end-of-season tournament that features the top-eight players — but several of the biggest names in the sport, including Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, are among the loudest critics of the deal because of the country’s repressive laws toward women and homosexuals, and are partly responsible for a delay in the announcement, according to people with knowledge of the process who remain anonymous to protect relationships.
Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Navratilova and Evert, long-term rivals and the closest of friends who won a combined 36 singles Grand Slam titles, co-wrote an essay in The Washington Post in January, stating that bringing the WTA Finals to Saudi Arabia would represent a step backwards for women and women’s sports.
Some current players are not completely comfortable with playing in Saudi Arabia, given current laws that limit the freedom of women and criminalize homosexuality.
Inside Saudi Arabia’s growing influence in sport
To push back against Evert and Navratilova and assuage those concerns, the people with knowledge of the process said the women’s tour is working with Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, to schedule a conference call with the top 20 players in the game and other big names outside the top 20.
Some of those players had asked to hear from women who grew up in the region. The idea of the call is to have the ambassador and other successful women from Saudi Arabia speak about the changes the country has already made and other plans to make it less repressive in the coming years. They want this to happen before the WTA Finals deal is announced, which may come as soon as the end of this month, according to people involved with the planning.
The approach is very different from last fall when players participating in the elite WTA Finals received a series of responses they could consider should they face questions about bringing the event to Saudi Arabia.
If asked about Saudi Arabia, where players who are gay may feel uncomfortable given the country criminalizes homosexuality, the WTA is understood to have advised players to consider saying, “I’m happy to play wherever the WTA Finals is hosted, it’s a prestigious event.” That advice was not well received.
In an interview on Wednesday at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, where she is working as a television commentator, Navratilova said her position had not changed.
“Bigger changes need to happen first before we go there,” Navratilova said. “I can’t go there and announce that I am gay. We have some gay players. Are they going to be safe? People say, well, just behave. But what does that mean?”
The Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. did not respond to messages seeking comment. In a lengthy post on X, formerly Twitter, in response to Navratilova and Evert’s essay, Bandar Al Saud wrote that by trying to keep the WTA Finals from going to Saudi Arabia, the stars had turned their back on women they had inspired.
“Perfection cannot be the price for admission,” Bandar Al Saud wrote. “For a tennis tournament or any other once-closed space that our women want to enter.”
Saudi Arabia’s push toward tennis goes beyond the professional level. David Haggerty, president of the International Tennis Federation, the sport’s world governing body, traveled to the country in the fall to attend the ATP Tour’s Next Gen Finals in Jeddah, a tournament for the best men’s players aged 21 and under.
Runner-up Arthur Fils, centre left, and winner Hamad Medjedovic, centre right, at last year’s Next Gen Finals in Jeddah (Adam Pretty/Getty Images) Haggerty met with sports officials there about the country’s grassroots investments in tennis. He shared information about what similarly sized countries in the region have done to develop the sport and received a commitment from leaders there to vastly expand their facilities, with millions of dollars in investment and opportunities for boys and girls to participate in the sport.
In a statement on Wednesday, the ITF said its mission is to help grow the sport in all of its 213 member nations.
“Western Asia is an important area of potential growth for the sport of tennis and, along with other countries from this region, we have witnessed Saudi Arabia actively investing in sport, both internally and externally in recent years.”
The ITF said it has been developing a strategy with the Saudi Tennis Federation to drive the growth of the sport in the country, including expanding junior programs and securing expertise and funding to enhance facilities, coaching, competition and opportunities for homegrown talent to flourish and to compete nationally and internationally.
“We have already seen encouraging signs,” the statement said, noting that in 2023 a Saudi national women’s team traveled to Burundi to compete in the regional championship of the Billie Jean King Cup, the international women’s team competition. Also last year, Saudi Arabia’s national junior girls team competed in the Billie Jean King Cup Juniors Asia/Oceania pre-qualifying event in Sri Lanka.
The ITF also organizes the international men’s team competition, the Davis Cup, in addition to the Billie Jean Cup. The final round of those events generally changes location every few years, though there are no plans as of now to bring them to Saudi Arabia.
In October, Saudi Arabia will host an exhibition it is calling the 6 Kings Slam, which will include Novak Djokovic, Daniil Medvedev, Rafael Nadal, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune. All, except Rune, have won a Grand Slam singles title.
For now, plans for official tennis events in Saudi Arabia include only the WTA Finals and a top-level mixed tournament similar to the one underway in Indian Wells. Both of those events are included in the $1billion of investments in the sport that Andrea Gaudenzi, the chairman of the ATP Tour, presented to other leaders of the sport last weekend.
The investments also include additional sponsorships. PIF has already committed $100million to sponsorships of the men’s rankings and multiple tournaments, money that was included in the proposal.
A portion of the money may also go toward funding a revived tour for senior players, increasing prize money for current players, and providing support for the smaller tournaments that provide opportunities for developing players to compete, and for more established players to earn appearance fees.
Taken together, the investments could immediately increase the total revenues and investment in professional tennis — which are between $2.5billion and $3bn — by roughly a third.
(Top photo: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
