(Reuters) – The women’s tennis tour will inevitably go to Saudi Arabia, American great Billie Jean King said as she urged the WTA to push for social change if they decide to stage a tournament in the Middle Eastern nation.
After the men’s ATP Tour announced the Next Gen Finals would be held in Jeddah from 2023 to 2027, social media has been awash with rumours that the WTA Finals could also be headed to Saudi Arabia in the future.
WTA CEO Steve Simon previously said that the Gulf state presented “big issues” as a host for women’s tour events, as Saudi Arabia’s record on women’s and LGBTQ rights has led to accusations of “sports-washing.”
Saudi Arabia has pumped huge amounts of money into soccer, Formula One and boxing while the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit recently ended a two-year dispute with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour by announcing a merger.
Asked if the WTA would stage a tournament in Saudi Arabia, King told Reuters: “I think they’ll be there. The thing I’m concerned about is the women, I want change if we go.
“But I’m big on engagement and inclusion so it’s a tough one. I know people are going to go there. The WTA played in Qatar in ’08, we took tennis there and we still have a tournament there every year.”
King stressed her desire to raise the profile of the Billie Jean King Cup, which will take place from Nov. 7-12 in Seville, Spain and begins two days after the conclusion of the WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico.
“With the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup we are the World Cup of tennis and we know how big the World Cup is in soccer,” King said.
“We need to make it much more apparent to people that we are the World Cup of our sport… This year’s our 60th anniversary, we’re really excited that we’re going to start from here now on.
“We have a new partnership with the ITF, our company, we have the commercial part of it. We’ll be talking a lot at Seville this year on what we can do better.”
(Reporting by Henry Rounce, writing by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Christina Fincher)
