Backlash as Saudis land women’s finals
Human rights fears over record-money move
THE Women’s Tennis Association has confirmed a controversial move to bring their crown-jewel event to Saudi Arabia, with a record prize fund of £12million a year.
The kingdom will host the WTA Tour Finals — which feature the season’s top eight singles players and doubles teams — for the next three years.
The move has long been mooted and the WTA were close to taking last year’s event to Saudi Arabia, before a late switch to Cancun in Mexico. That thrown-together affair was an unmitigated disaster and there should at least be no repeat of such a shoddy set-up in Riyadh in November.
But Saudi Arabia’s restrictions on the freedom of women mean their hosting of the Finals — the highest-profile women’s sporting event to visit the region — will face a barrage of criticism.
Tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova co-wrote a piece for the Washington Post in January savaging the prospect, saying ‘taking a tournament there would represent a significant step backward, to the detriment not just of women’s sport but women’.
Russian Daria Kasatkina, the world No 11, is gay and has concerns about playing in a country which criminalises homosexuality. ‘It’s tough to talk about,’ she said last year. ‘Not everything is about money.’
But Tunisian world No 6 Ons Jabeur told UAE newspaper The National: ‘It’s great. As an Arab woman, I am proud to be part of this. It’s time to make change and I hope as women athletes we can do that and inspire women in the region and around the world.’
WTA chief executive Steve Simon claimed the move is ‘supporting significant change being made within the region’, although he admitted attracting a decent crowd could be difficult.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund recently signed a five-year deal with the men’s tour the ATP, and there are reports of a $2billion offer to merge the men’s and women’s tours.