NEW YORK — Saudi Arabia’s transfer into tennis will now embody a multiyear deal to sponsor the WTA girls’s rankings.
The WTA launched phrase of its partnership settlement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund (PIF) on Monday, a transfer that follows final month’s information that the dominion will host the tour’s season-ending championships in Riyadh beginning this yr and the February announcement that it’ll sponsor the ATP males’s rankings.
The PIF is the primary naming-rights companion for the WTA rankings and the brand new association additionally contains plans to advertise tennis at decrease ranges of the game.
Tennis has been consumed these days by the talk over whether or not the game ought to comply with golf and others in making offers with Saudi Arabia, the place rights teams say girls and members of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood proceed to face discrimination.
Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova are amongst those that urged the WTA to remain out of Saudi Arabia, whereas one other former star participant and Corridor of Famer, equal rights pioneer Billie Jean King, advocated for engagement.
The WTA Finals can be in Saudi Arabia as a part of a three-year deal that may improve the prize cash for this November’s season-ending championship to a report $15.25 million, a 70% improve from 2023.
Saudi Arabia’s Non-public Funding Fund shaped the LIV Golf tour and put cash into soccer, for instance, and the dominion’s function in tennis has been rising. The ATP Tour moved its Subsequent Gen Finals for main 21-and-under gamers to Jeddah in November; 22-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal lately grew to become an envoy for the Saudi Tennis Federation; he’ll be a part of 24-time main champion Novak Djokovic and rising stars Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner at an exhibition occasion in Riyadh in October.
There have been discussions about inserting a top-tier Masters 1000 event in Saudi Arabia, too, a part of a attainable bigger restructuring involving the WTA, ATP and the nation.
