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The potential venue of the upcoming WTA Finals has attracted a lot of speculation in recent months, with Saudi Arabia repeatedly cited as a possible destination.
It is now being suggested that Saudi Arabia is set to secure the rights to host the tournament this year and beyond. According to Polish outlet Sport.pl, Riyadh is set to host the WTA Finals until 2026 with an option to extend the deal.
The WTA and the Saudis are reportedly close to penning a deal to this effect, although the former hasn't made any official announcements regarding this so far. The WTA Finals were held in Cancun last year and have been held in the Middle East before, with Qatar hosting the event from 2008 to 2010.
These reports have surfaced just days after the ATP confirmed a multi-year strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF). The deal will see the PIF become the naming partner of the men's rankings and partner at six different ATP tournaments.
This includes the ATP Finals, Next Gen ATP Finals (to be held in Jeddah until 2027), and tournaments in Beijing, Indian Wells, Madrid, and Miami. The Saudis also made further inroads into tennis in January when they announced 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal as the official ambassador of the Saudi Tennis Federation.
What Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have said about WTA Finals' potential move to Saudi Arabia
Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert wrote a joint piece for the Washington Post in January where they talked about the WTA Finals' potential move to the Middle East.
The duo, widely regarded as two of the best female tennis players in the history of the sport, questioned Saudi Arabia's questionable human rights record and their treatment of female citizens. An excerpt from their piece read:
"The WTA should revisit the values upon which it was established. We believe that those values cannot even be expressed, much less achieved, in Saudi Arabia. Taking a tournament there would represent a significant step backward, to the detriment not just of women’s sport, but women. We hope this changes someday, hopefully within the next five years. If so, we would endorse engagement there."
Evert and Navratilova, who equally share 36 Grand Slam singles titles between them, concluded:
"The WTA must stand for human rights so long as inequality for women exists in the world. We offer this from our experiences: A champion is carved not just from trophies, or earnings, but from the decision to surrender comfort and luxury to make hard choices and take principled stands."
Later that month, the kingdom's ambassador to the USA, Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud, came out and criticized Evert and Navratilova. She implied that the American duo was 'using sports as a weapon to advance personal bias' and 'punish a society' eager to embrace tennis.
