{"id":65739,"date":"2024-04-04T10:29:52","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T14:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=65739"},"modified":"2024-04-04T10:29:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T14:29:52","slug":"saudi-arabia-host-wta-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/04\/04\/saudi-arabia-host-wta-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia to Host Next Three Editions of the WTA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The WTA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/news\/3952623\/riyadh-selected-as-the-host-of-wta-finals-from-2024-2026\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a> on Thursday that Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will be the host for the next three editions of the WTA Finals, from 2024-2026. The 2024 season-ending championships will take place from November 2-9, featuring the Top 8 singles players and doubles teams in the race to the WTA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>The agreement with the Saudi Tennis Federation will offer record prize money of $15.25 million at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wta\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">WTA Finals<\/a> in 2024 with further increases in 2025 and 2026, which is higher than the $15 million prize money offered to the men at the ATP Finals in Turin last year.<\/p>\n<p>After assessing multiple bids from different regions and engaging with players for several months, the WTA selected Riyadh. All prospective hosts were considered against a clear set of criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The ability to deliver and fund a world-class event for players and fans<\/li>\n<li>Support for the WTA\u2019s ambition for significant prize money growth<\/li>\n<li>The strength of their commitment to growing the WTA Finals and the sport over time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>CEO of WTA Ventures, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/news\/3952623\/riyadh-selected-as-the-host-of-wta-finals-from-2024-2026\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marina Storti said<\/a>: &#8220;This multi-year partnership expands the WTA\u2019s presence in the Middle East and brings us to a country with huge potential for growth, as well as supporting our ambitious plans to accelerate the global development and progress of women\u2019s tennis. We&#8217;re looking forward to working with the Saudi Tennis Federation over the coming years to grow the WTA Finals, create more fans, and inspire more people to play our brilliant sport.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The season-ending championships had three different locations in its last three editions as they were looking for a long-term venue for the event. It was quite problematic last year in Cancun as the players had to play <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com\/baseline\/articles\/aryna-sabalenka-clarifies-comments-cancun-conditions-winning-wta-finals-return\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">amidst unsafe court conditions and hurricanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia doesn&#8217;t have the best reputation when it comes to women&#8217;s rights, so it will be interesting to see how the players react to this announcement. Legends like Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/article\/saudi-arabia-strikes-55m-deal-to-host-wta-season-finale-gbtqjstpv\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have previously expressed their concerns<\/a> about a potential move to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane USAToday<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The WTA announced on Thursday that Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will be the host for the next three editions of the WTA Finals, from 2024-2026. The 2024 season-ending championships will take place from November 2-9, featuring the Top 8 singles players and doubles teams in the race to the WTA Finals. The agreement with the Saudi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5086,"featured_media":54975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2,9],"tags":[329,201],"class_list":["post-65739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wta","category-featured","category-news","tag-chris-evert","tag-martina-navratilova"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}