This week, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is staging its first high-profile professional tennis tournament.
The top eight female tennis players have descended on Riyadh for the WTA Finals, which kicked off on Saturday with world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka beating Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng.
There has been concern over the Saudis’ first real foray into pro tennis and top WTA bosses were forced to defend their decision to head to Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has already staged the Next Gen ATP Finals – an event for players aged 20 and under – and several exhibitions, including the recent Six Kings Slam. But the WTA Finals is the first time top players have headed to the Kingdom to compete as part of the professional tennis tour.
There was backlash when it first emerged the WTA was considering taking their premier tournament to Saudi. Tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova condemned the decision.
Even Coco Gauff voiced some concerns when she gave a measured response about the “political issues” in the country after arriving for the tournament. But women’s tennis bosses have defended their choice to sign a three-year deal to hold the WTA Finals in Riyadh.
WTA CEO Portia Archer was among those fielding questions about women’s rights ahead of the tournament. And she denied suggestions that players had to be “briefed” before coming to Saudi.
Asked whether the athletes had been informed about what they could or couldn’t say in terms of freedom of expression, she replied: “No, we haven’t. No, we haven’t done any briefings that relate to that.
“Players can express themselves freely. There’s no sort of briefing that was required. What we have expressed to our players, and will reexpress to our players when we’re in new environments, this is a new country for the WTA, this is a new country for many of our players, that we are asked questions that the players had.”
However, Archer explained that some players did have questions they were quick to answer. “We did provide answers to those questions, things around dress or clothing,” she continued.
“For example, there were questions about head covering being required, if you had to wear clothes that were custom to the local environment. We answered those questions appropriately, that you can be not covered. Those kinds of questions were things that we were providing guidance on.”
The tour’s CEO was also questioned about the optics of bringing their biggest event to a country that ranks 126 out of 146 in the global gender gap index.
“Our decision was made with full consultation with our players and with our tournaments. I think that that led to the decision to come here and being comfortable with it,” she said.
“We feel comfortable in our decision and we think that it will support women in tennis and enable some very positive things to come out of us being here that will last well beyond the eight days that we’re here this year and successively the next two years when we host the tournament here.”
It comes as Gauff said she wanted things to change for women and the LGBTQ+ community if they came to compete in Saudi Arabia. “I think for me it was important and it was one of the questions I brought up because about LGBTQ issues, women’s rights issues, how we can help with that,” she said.
“It’s one of those things where I want to see it for myself, see if the change is happening. If I felt uncomfortable or felt like nothing’s happening, then maybe I probably wouldn’t come back.”
