Saudi Arabia - $1 bn offer - merger of WTA & ATP

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

RE: Saudi Arabia - $1 bn offer - merger of WTA & ATP

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

And so it comes to pass...the WTA Finals in Riyadh for the next 3 years

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/68732673

$15.25m prizemoney this year, rising to $15.5m next two years

Rich2310 · County player

Money talks as they say.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Tumaini Caryol from the Guardian writing about the new proposals

www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/08/tennis-premier-tour-proposals-saudi-arabia

Summary below from the article:

What they are trying to fix: For decades, the length of the season has put a strain on players and it is one of numerous complaints that have gone unresolved. Players outside the top 100 also still struggle to break even, with inflation devouring the modest prize money on the ITF World Tennis Tour. The calendar is fractured and illogical, failing to minimise travel distances between tournaments along with the sports carbon footprint.

Premier Tour offer: There are merits to these ideas, such as a shorter season and the alignment of mens and womens tours with equal prize money, but it also feels like the tennis version of the European Super League proposed in football. It has the makings of a tour focused on elite players, and may make a lot of money, but threatens to erase many of the sports current virtues...The 500- and 250-level tournaments would be crushed, and players outside the top 30 would largely become cannon fodder for the elite, with opportunities for them to win tournaments significantly reduced.

Saudi: The ATP confirmed to the Telegraph that it has opened the bidding process for a 10th Masters 1000 event, and it is clear that relevant parties include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Tennis Australia. While discussions surrounding the Premier Tour are still at an early stage and it is uncertain how far they will go, Saudi Arabias growing presence and influence in tennis is undeniable.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Russell Fuller provides a good summary of where this as now got to

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/articles/c4n1kjgze1ko

In essence - Saudi bid now superceded by them getting the WTA FInals and by the ATP having tendered the Masters 1000 event in week 1 (January) or in February (Saudi, UAE, Qatar and Australia bidding). That process involves bids coming in this week and possibly a decision this week or further rounds of bids.

Meanwhile, the Premium Tour has a little bit more detail - 64 players with TOur cards, 96 players events (14 or 15 a year) plus 128 player slams, and then Tour Finals and DC/BJK Cup. The 500 level events will create a Contender TOur with promotion and relegation to the Premium Tour, and 250 level events dropping back to Challenger status.

But the feeling is that this will never happen.

Meanwhile, it seems the various bodies are actually talking to each other and collaborating more on what this could all look like - so maybe we can reach some sort of conclusion in due course that works for everyone. It feels like various parties are trying to protect their own interests and accommodating them into some sort of structure that works for everyone will take a lot of talking and a lot of time

thegingerlightbulb · Intermediate Club Player

Feel free to shot me down in flames but, I actually quite like the idea of the Premier tour. The one caveat for me is that it must remain somewhat of an open door. So the qualifying for the 96 person even should be deep i.e. 128 strong, thus allowing most of the top 200 the opportunity to qualify for the premier events.

One argument I have seen is that those ranked 50-64 would lose all the time, but if you took out the seeding and made it luck of the draw, then a guy ranked 60th may well go deep at a few tournaments with some good draws and a couple of big wins over top 30 guys.

I really like the idea of the men and the women playing at the same tournament too. There could also be the option for a full mixed doubles tournament at each event too. This would also help those guys in the 50-64 range playing doubles and mixed doubles to supplement the income.

I also think that instead of "promotion and relegation at the end of the season, a darts style Q school tournament maybe four 512 deep tournaments over the 8 off week period would be the fairest way to do that with the people ranked 50-64 joining everyone else in fighting for 14 tour cards. Winners of each event get an automatic card, plus a league table sorts out the other 8 or so.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

thegingerlightbulb wrote:
Feel free to shot me down in flames but, I actually quite like the idea of the Premier tour. The one caveat for me is that it must remain somewhat of an open door. So the qualifying for the 96 person even should be deep i.e. 128 strong, thus allowing most of the top 200 the opportunity to qualify for the premier events.

One argument I have seen is that those ranked 50-64 would lose all the time, but if you took out the seeding and made it luck of the draw, then a guy ranked 60th may well go deep at a few tournaments with some good draws and a couple of big wins over top 30 guys.

I really like the idea of the men and the women playing at the same tournament too. There could also be the option for a full mixed doubles tournament at each event too. This would also help those guys in the 50-64 range playing doubles and mixed doubles to supplement the income.

I also think that instead of "promotion and relegation at the end of the season, a darts style Q school tournament maybe four 512 deep tournaments over the 8 off week period would be the fairest way to do that with the people ranked 50-64 joining everyone else in fighting for 14 tour cards. Winners of each event get an automatic card, plus a league table sorts out the other 8 or so.

Hi Gingerlightbulb - maybe but I presume they would plan to have something more than a few events at the year end to determine the next seasons entry list, what if someone is injured in that period?! And what surfaces would they choose to be fair to all etc - darts doesnt face those issues!

thegingerlightbulb · Intermediate Club Player

The injury thing is an interesting point. But the same issue will apply with a promotion/relegation playoff. If there were four tournaments over eight weeks. There would be a better chance to be fit for at least one of the Q school tournaments.

Also, if there were four tournaments: Two on hard, two on clay? Or one on hard, one on clay, one on grass, one indoors?

-- Edited by thegingerlightbulb on Monday 22nd of April 2024 03:05:37 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

thegingerlightbulb wrote:
The injury thing is an interesting point. But the same issue will apply with a promotion/relegation playoff. If there were four tournaments over eight weeks. There would be a better chance to be fit for at least one of the Q school tournaments.
Also, if there were four tournaments: Two on hard, two on clay? Or one on hard, one on clay, one on grass, one indoors?

-- Edited by thegingerlightbulb on Monday 22nd of April 2024 02:23:34 PM

Details to come I guess! Which they seem to be short on. I was also initially intuitively into this idea but my feeling now is that I think they need to create a stronger sense of narrative around the 1000 Level events but not detach them from the tour. To do that, Id link the qualifying for tour finals purely to the slams and 1000 events, no race points for 500/250 etc. and really promote that race - Id make it 16 player as well and not 8 in year end finals, make it a bigger deal and joint mens and womens. Make it a world championship finals in terms of name. 16 player knockout with a best 5 set final to give it something that stands out.

Var · Pro player

JonH comes home wrote:
thegingerlightbulb wrote:
The injury thing is an interesting point. But the same issue will apply with a promotion/relegation playoff. If there were four tournaments over eight weeks. There would be a better chance to be fit for at least one of the Q school tournaments.
Also, if there were four tournaments: Two on hard, two on clay? Or one on hard, one on clay, one on grass, one indoors?

-- Edited by thegingerlightbulb on Monday 22nd of April 2024 02:23:34 PM
Details to come I guess! Which they seem to be short on. I was also initially intuitively into this idea but my feeling now is that I think they need to create a stronger sense of narrative around the 1000 Level events but not detach them from the tour. To do that, Id link the qualifying for tour finals purely to the slams and 1000 events, no race points for 500/250 etc. and really promote that race - Id make it 16 player as well and not 8 in year end finals, make it a bigger deal and joint mens and womens. Make it a world championship finals in terms of name. 16 player knockout with a best 5 set final to give it something that stands out.

How would it work with illness, or time off the tour for say medical operations? Surely you may need to work back into the mix? I am a bit concerned as to the impact on the juniors coming through and if they would have as many opportunitiesunless the next gen ran in tandem.

thegingerlightbulb · Intermediate Club Player

Illness and Injury, I don't have a great solution for. But for juniors- especially the elite ones- qualifying for a tour card would get them onto the Premier tour much quicker than churning through ITF events

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

well, this all said, the tone of the Fuller article was that it didnt appear this would ever come to anything and that the powers that be are actually, for the first time in a long time, talking again and trying to move it forwards.

I am not so sure the Slams really want this so much as Aussies want to protect their own space...if the M1000 slot is actually put into February, that will probably satisfy them. The Saudis probably dont care if it is Feb versus Jan, tbh. It could be made to fit as part of a middle east swing with the current Dubai and Doha events...the issue then would be what about European Indoor events like Rotterdam and Latin America swing, which is growing in popularity? Issue is the season is just congested. But ATP could sacrifice those or at least have it in their gift to sacrifice them.

Once we have the extra 1000 event, and hopefully in February, the Premier Tour concept loses its legs, the Saudis and Aussies are happy. It still means the narrative around the season and the Tour finals needs to be dealt with (see my idea above) but the tour as a structure with up and down movement would largely stay as is.

Within this compromise solution, it just needs the 1000 events to be a) all mixed b) all 96 draw events as far as possible c) have a stronger narrative leading to the mixed World Tour Finals (watch out for Saudis getting a mixed tour final in around 2027 or so) with a stronger direct link between the 1000 events and success in those and the Tour finals

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
And so it comes to pass...the WTA Finals in Riyadh for the next 3 years

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/68732673

$15.25m prizemoney this year, rising to $15.5m next two years

Extract from Stu Fraser's article in today's Times (to an archived version of which there's no point in my providing a link owing to the fact that the archiving process no longer offers a means of circumventing the paper's paywall for non-subscribers):

Martina Navratilova has insisted that she has "no plans" to travel to the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia in November. The 18-times grand slam champion believes that the decision to hold the season-ending championships in Riyadh is "as big a change as you can make except for maybe going to North Korea".

The WTA defied the wishes of Navratilova and Chris Evert by confirming last month that a three-year deal, worth an estimated £55million, had been signed with the Saudi Tennis Federation. In January Navratilova and Evert jointly expressed their concerns about Saudi Arabia's human rights record in a column for the Washington Post, headlined: "We did not help build women's tennis for it to be exploited by Saudi Arabia".

"We're not playing so the players made their choice," Navratilova said on Sunday. "I honour that. We [Navratilova and Evert] both do. I just wanted to make sure they made the decision not in a vacuum that they knew what they were getting into.

"One of the players said they 'don't want to be political'. Going to Saudi is about as political you can get. Welcome to sport. Sport is political. Sport has been at the forefront of social change. I don't see how anything happens there without the blessing of MBS [Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia]. He decides what goes and what doesn't."

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

x.com/benrothenberg/status/1806029723278905855

Judy Murray involved in Saudi tour finals

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Anybody know what the latest is on the rival tour structure proposals and ATP/WTA merger discussions? Is it too late for 2025 to change in any meaningful way?