When the world’s best players backed Saudi Arabia to host this weekend’s WTA finalsone of the motivations was to avoid a LIV Tennis situation.
This is what Jessica Pegula says, the recent US Open finalist and world number 6 who also sits on the WTA Players Council.
“The golf thing, I don’t think it’s a perfect situation,” Pegula told Ttelegraph Sportin connection with the famous LIV Golf project of Saudi Arabia. “I think we wanted to learn from this situation (and) not let it get to that point.”
Although LIV Golf has put billions of dollars in players’ pockets, it seems that give Spanish star Jon Rahm more than $300 millionit also split the sport in two and robbed PGA Tour events of star power.
In tennis, however, official tours are gradually moving towards a closer relationship with Saudi Arabia – something golf authorities may now have wished to consider sooner.
The ATP, which runs the men’s tour, moved its NextGen event to Jeddah last year. Today, the WTA Finals begins a controversial three-year residency in Riyadh.
The agreement to host the WTA Finals nevertheless caused great anxiety. THE Anti-camp is led by 1980s legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilovawho wrote a joint letter highlighting the Kingdom’s repressive gender policy and its criminalization of the LGBTQ community.
The letter concluded that “bringing the WTA Finals to Saudi Arabia would represent a significant step backwards, to the detriment of the WTA, women’s sport and women. »
But WTA founder Billie Jean King supported the move, saying, “I don’t think you really change unless you commit,” and current players took her view as gospel. It’s also worth noting that the top eight women will receive a record prize pool of £11.75 million for this year’s final.
“Everyone was on guard”
“A lot of people were coming and going,” Pegula said of her fellow WTA Players Council members, who also include Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sakkari. “There was a lot of thought. And I think it also started when they (Saudi Arabia) went to play golf and many other things.
“It wasn’t just tennis, was it?” » added Pegula, who is the only Player Council member to qualify for the finals. “I think people were already thinking about it before, when they (the Saudis) wanted to get involved in a lot of other sports, everyone was on guard.
“We really tried to talk to people who come from the region. We also chatted a bit with Ons (Jabeur, the former Tunisian Wimbledon finalist who is the most successful Arab player this game has ever seen). I’ve spoken to golfers who have already come here for events. Even some representatives from the Players’ Council and the WTA Board of Directors came here and visited it just to see, you know, try to understand better and be more hands-on.
The picture the Saudi hosts presented heading into Saturday’s opening matches was uniformly upbeat, with Judy Murray leading a series of training camps around Riyadh. As Pegula explained Friday: “We’ve already been able to do a lot of things here for a lot of young girls, young women. Several people came up to me and told me how amazing it was to see us compete here, how much it was really going to help the sport.
“Even the girls at the dance were just freaked out when they saw us.”
Pegula, a particularly business-savvy player whose billionaire parents own the Buffalo Bills among other major American sports franchises, added: “There are now 60,000 girls playing tennis in schools. Even the girls from the prom were freaked out when they saw us at the hotel and asked for our autographs. When you see that you’re changing these girls’ lives, I think that starts to take precedence over what you’re trying to accomplish.
In addition to the events already held, Saudi Arabia has also signed on to both tours through a branded sponsorship deal that promotes the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund.
Meanwhile, the ATP board spent much of the last year trying to find space in an already crowded schedule for another Masters 1000 event, which would take place in Riyadh. A report on Saturday suggested commercial terms had finally been agreed, with the event expected to begin in 2027 or 2028.
In the structure of both Tours, the Players’ Council elects three representatives to the board (which in the case of the WTA are now Julia Boserup, Anja Vreg and Kurt Zumwalt) and then guides their vote on decisions.
Friday in Riyadh, each of the eight qualified for the WTA finals took turns in front of the media. Each argued that the presence of the tournament would contribute to the empowerment of women in a country ranked 126th out of 146 in the global gender gap index.
Gauff: “I want to see it for myself”
Amid the general positivity, the only player to voice concerns about the choice of venue was Coco Gauff, one of the most politically informed players on the tour, who said she would wait to see if the promised progress would actually materialize before deciding whether she should return to Riyadh in the future.
“I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t have any reservations,” Gauff said when asked if she was concerned about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. “It’s one of those things where I want to see it for myself, see if change happens.” If I felt uncomfortable or felt like nothing was happening, then maybe I probably wouldn’t come back.
“As far as being here for a week, I definitely feel like it’s progressing. People I’ve talked to say that’s how it is. I can only trust what I am told. Obviously I don’t live here, so I can only trust what people who live here tell me.
