Steadily – and rapidly – over the last 30 years, seeking to both expand their economic strength by not relying solely on their petroleum riches as well as struggling to convince the world they are becoming a less repressive regime, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has built an empire across the broad spectrum of professional sports; F1 racing, soccer, basketball, WWE and, most notoriously, golf with the LIV tour. And now professional tennis is the latest sport to be seduced by the massive amounts of money that the Kingdom can offer, with the WTA Finals just having concluded in Riyadh.
In 2023, while the Kingdom was intensely lobbying the WTA to host the tennis tour’s year end finals in Riyadh, a fault line developed amongst the old guard of the sport, with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova on one side and Billie Jean King on the other. In late 2023, just before the WTA confirmed that Riyadh would indeed host the 2024 WTA Finals, Evert and Navratilova sent a letter to the WTA outlining their deeply felt concerns:
