Barring another last-minute twist, the women’s professional tennis tour is preparing to announce that the season-ending WTA Tour Finals will take place in Saudi Arabia, marking the latest step in the country’s huge investment in the sport elite.
WTA Tour CEO Steve Simon has held talks with Saudi officials over the past year and if a deal is reached, the 2024 finals will take place there at the end of the season, according to many of the sport’s top officials. The WTA has been here before, though, including as recently as last summer, when it was close to a deal with Saudi Arabia, but it changed at the last minute under public pressure.
In a statement Thursday, a WTA spokesperson said the process is ongoing, with plans for a final decision and announcement by the end of the month.
“As everyone knows, we are working through a process to select a host venue for the WTA Finals,” they said. “There has been no final decision and we will continue to engage with players through the ongoing process.”
Atletico you have reached out to Saudi representatives for comment.
A senior tennis official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the WTA, called the potential deal with Saudi Arabia “the worst kept secret in the sport.” The WTA is said to have reached the point where it is fully confident in Saudi Arabia’s ability to produce a high-level event, but remains concerned about the ancillary criticism that would arise from bringing its signature event to a country that does not guarantee the women equal rights. .
The WTA Finals deal would represent the latest step in Saudi Arabia’s efforts to become a major destination for international sport. It could also signal the start of the country holding more major tennis events.
Saudi Arabia is looking to acquire a flagship tournament from at least mid-2023. While it is unclear whether this will happen, several major tennis events are beginning the process of finding new host sites. Top tennis officials expect Saudi Arabia to play a significant role in the process, given its hunger for sporting events and the need among major tennis organizations for new sources of investment.
The International Tennis Federation, which organizes the international team Davis Cup for men and the Billie Jean King Cup for women, will soon begin looking for new sites for the final stages of these events in the coming years.
The Billie Jean King Cup is in its last edition in Seville, Spain. King, who owns 49% of the event alongside his wife and business partner, has already expressed his support for bringing the WTA Finals to Saudi Arabia, arguing that engagement with the government is the best way to bring about change.
In football, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought Premier League team Newcastle United in 2021 and some of football’s biggest names have moved to Saudi Pro League clubs, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema. Saudi Arabia will also host the 2034 World Cup.

Cristiano Ronaldo arrived at Saudi club Al Nassr last year (Khalid Alhaj/MB Media/Getty Images)
In golf, Saudi Arabia has pledged to spend $2 billion on a new competition, LIV Golf – once again attracting some of the sport’s biggest names to take part – and in recent years the country has become home of elite boxing. Formula 1 has been contested in the city of Jeddah since 2021 and there has also been considerable Saudi investment in Formula E. You can read more about Saudi Arabia’s takeover of the sport here.
Saudi Arabia hosted the ATP Tour’s Next Gen Finals – which pits the best young male players against each other – in November and exhibition matches between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka and Ons Jabeur the following month.
As the tennis world gathered in Melbourne for the Australian Open two weeks ago, Rafael Nadal announced a deal to become an ambassador for the Saudi Arabian tennis federation. The move caught the tennis establishment by surprise as Nadal has an established reputation for avoiding political controversy.
Although Djokovic played the recent exhibition match and expressed his support for further Saudi investment in sports, he has failed to pursue a deeper relationship with the country.

Djokovic supported tennis in Saudi Arabia (Wang Haizhou/Xinhua via Getty Images)
For months there have been discussions between the WTA and the International Tennis Federation on the need to bring the finals at the end of the tour and the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup – i.e. the women’s tennis World Cup which takes place the following week – closer together and perhaps even in the same place. This would make it easier and more likely for the top eight players, who qualify for the elite tour championship, to play in the international team competition, although it is unclear whether a single market could support both events.

Tennis legend Billie Jean King (Matt McNulty/Getty Images for ITF)
The ATP Tour, which organizes elite men’s tennis, has a finals deal with Turin, Italy, that expires in 2025. The ATP and WTA have worked more closely than ever to find ways to grow their operations from tournaments featuring both men and women are the most popular. The idea of one-day tours joining the end-of-season championships has also been discussed, although not permanently.
The WTA was close to a deal last summer to bring its event to Saudi Arabia as it frantically tried to find a site to replace Shenzhen, China, which terminated its 10-year deal with the tour in response to the tour’s decision to boycott China for 18 years. months after the country refused to investigate whether a former senior government official sexually assaulted former doubles player Peng Shuai.
The tour went ahead at the last minute and chose to hold the championship in Cancun, Mexico, for a year, despite resistance on social media from two of the sport’s biggest names: Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
The former on-court rivals, who are now close friends, renewed their public resistance last week, writing a joint essay in the Washington Post arguing that a deal with Saudi Arabia would represent a step backwards for women and women’s sports.

Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, united in wanting tennis to stay out of Saudi Arabia (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Saudi Arabia has passed a series of reforms in recent years aimed at making women a more substantial part of public life, allowing them to drive, own businesses and socialize in public with men. But he maintained other restrictions. Women cannot marry without the permission of a male guardian and must obey their husbands if those men do not want to allow them to exercise the rights granted by the government.
Also, like other countries in the region, Saudi Arabia criminalizes homosexuality, although this has not stopped the WTA from holding tournaments in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
“We fully appreciate the importance of respecting different cultures and religions,” Evert and Navratilova wrote. “It is because of this, and not in spite of this, that we oppose the awarding of the tour’s flagship tournament to Riyadh. The WTA’s values are in stark contrast to those of the proposed host country.”
But unlike last summer, when Saudi Arabia remained mostly silent as critics of the plan to bring a major tournament there pilloried the country in the press, Saudi Arabia faced criticism head-on this week, a move that tennis officials saw as an attempt to embolden your potential partner.
Princess Reema Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, issued a scathing response to Evert and Navratilova, accusing them of having “turned their backs on the very women they inspired and it is more than disappointing.”

Bandar Al Saud criticized Evert, Navratilova and other overseas voices who dismiss Saudi women as voiceless and voiceless victims.
“Perfection cannot be the price of admission,” Bandar Al Saud wrote. “For a tennis tournament or any other formerly closed space our women want to enter.”
Discomfort and resistance to an event in Saudi Arabia have diminished among female players in recent months. Several top stars, including world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, noted the difficulties faced by women in the region but seemed resigned to playing there.
“I definitely don’t support the situation there,” U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff said at the Australian Open, “but if we decide to go there, I hope we’ll be able to make changes and improve the quality and effort.” in local communities and make a difference.”
(Top photo: Robert Prange/Getty Images)