When the world’s best players backed Saudi Arabia to host this weekend’s WTA Finals, one of the motivations was to avoid a LIV Tennis situation.
That’s according to Jessica Pegula, the recent US Open finalist and world number 6, who is also a member of the WTA Player Council.
“I don’t think the golf thing was a perfect situation,” Pegula told Tegraph Sportsin connection with Saudi Arabia’s infamous LIV Golf project. “I think we wanted to learn from that situation [and] don’t let it get to that point.”
While LIV Golf has put billions of dollars in the pockets of players and reportedly earned Spanish star Jon Rahm more than $300 million, it has also divided the sport in half and stripped PGA Tour events of star power.
In tennis, however, the official Tours are gradually moving towards a closer relationship with Saudi Arabia – something the golf authorities may now wish they had considered sooner.
The ATP, which organizes the men’s tour, moved their NextGen event to Jeddah last year. Now the WTA Finals begin a controversial three-year stay in Riyadh.
Nevertheless, the hosting agreement for the WTA Finals has caused a lot of unrest. The anti-camp is led by 1980s legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, who wrote a joint letter pointing out the Kingdom’s repressive gender politics and criminalization of the LGBTQ community.
The letter concluded that “bringing the WTA finals to Saudi Arabia would represent a significant step backwards at the expense of the WTA, women’s sports and women.”
But WTA founder Billie Jean King supported the move, saying, “I don’t think you really change unless you’re involved,” and current players have taken her position as gospel. It should also be noted that the top eight women will receive a record prize money of £11.75 million for this year’s final.
‘Everyone was on edge’
“A lot of people went back and forth,” Pegula said of her fellow WTA Player Council members, which also includes Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sakkari. “A lot of thought went into it. And I think that also started when she [Saudi Arabia] went golfing and much more.
“Wasn’t it just tennis, right?” added Pegula, the only Player Council member to qualify for the Finals. “I think people thought about this before, when they did that [the Saudis] Because I wanted to practice many other sports, everyone was alert.
“We certainly tried to talk to people in the area. We talked to Us [Jabeur, the Tunisian former Wimbledon finalist who is the most successful Arab player the game has seen] even a little bit. I’ve spoken to a number of female golfers who have been here for events. Even some of the Players Council and [WTA] Representatives from the board came down here and visited just to see, you know, try to get understanding and be more on the ground.
The picture presented by the Saudi hosts ahead of Saturday’s opening matches has been uniformly optimistic, with Judy Murray leading a series of coaching clinics around Riyadh. As Pegula explained on Friday: “We have already been able to do a lot of things here for a lot of young girls, young women. I’ve had several people come up to me and tell me how great it is to see us compete here, how it’s really going to help the sport.”
“Even the girls’ prom kids panicked when they saw us.”
Pegula, an unusually 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’ prom kids panicked when they saw us at the hotel and asked for autographs. When you see that you’re changing the lives of those girls, I think it starts to take precedent over what you’re trying to accomplish.”
In addition to the events already being organized, Saudi Arabia has also purchased both Tours through a brand sponsorship deal advertising the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
Meanwhile, the ATP board has spent much of the past year trying to find space in an already crowded calendar for a new Masters 1000 event, which will take place in Riyadh. One report on Saturday suggested commercial terms have finally been agreed, with the event starting in 2027 or 2028.
In the structure of both Tours, the Players’ Council elects three representatives to the board of directors (in the case of the WTA now Julia Boserup, Anja Vreg and Kurt Zumwalt) and then guides their voting on decisions.
On Friday in Riyadh, each of the eight qualifying matches for the WTA Finals had its turn in front of the media. Everyone argued that the presence of the tournament will help women’s empowerment in a country that ranks 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 express concern about the choice of venue was Coco Gauff, one of the most politically informed players on the tour, saying she would wait to see if the promised progress would actually materialize before deciding whether she would return to Riyadh in the future.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t have reservations,” Gauff explained, when asked if she was concerned about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. “It’s one of those things where I want to see for myself, see if the change is happening. If I felt uncomfortable or like nothing was happening, I probably wouldn’t come back.
“As far as being here for a week, I really feel like it’s progress. The people I’ve talked to say it is. I can only trust what I am told. Obviously I don’t live here, so I can only rely on what people tell me they live here.”
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
