WTA Tour chief executive wants to extend Tour Finals deal with Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The chief executive of the women’s tennis tour has said that she would like the organization to keep its signature event, the season-ending WTA Tour Finals, in Saudi Arabia beyond its current deal.

“We signed on for a three-year term, we’d actually enjoy being here for even longer than we have been, or than we are agreed to be here,” Portia Archer said during an interview in Riyadh Saturday afternoon.

Advertisement

Archer cited what she called the growing interest in women’s tennis in both Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab world, the financial commitments Saudi Arabia has made to the event, the high-quality facilities and the apparent impact the event and WTA programs have had on grassroots tennis as her reasons for wanting to stay.

“I have experience throughout sports and have attended very high-level sporting events throughout my career, and this is definitely an elite, high-level, professional tennis event and professional sporting event, and we’ve been able to up our game a little bit more this year, even over last year,” said Archer, a former executive with the NBA and NBC Sports.

“I can see the difference in the fans who are coming,” Archer said. “They’re better educated, they’re more familiar with tennis.

“I’m excited and I’m happy we’re here. I think it was a good decision.”

Advertisement

Archer made her comments just hours before world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Reybakina were set to play for the richest prize in women’s tennis history, more than $5.2 million.

Officials with Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Sport, the main Saudi authority behind the efforts to bring the Tour Finals to the kingdom, were not immediately available for comment. Executives with PIF, the country’s sovereign wealth fund and a leading sponsor of both the men’s and women’s tours, were also not immediately available for comment.

The WTA Tour decided in 2024 to bring its most prestigious event to Saudi Arabia, despite the country’s laws that require women to get permission from a male guardian to marry, and its heavily criticized human rights record and treatment of women, political dissidents, and the LGBTQIA+ community.

At last year’s inaugural edition, Archer said in a news conference that the WTA’s values did not have to align with its tournament hosts. When pressed on that point, she said that she misspoke, and that her intention was to “really say that we respect the values, even if they differ from other countries that we find ourselves in and compete in.” The tour has long held events in other countries with criticized human rights records, including China and the United Arab Emirates.

Advertisement

In a special report at last year’s WTA Tour Finals, the first in Riyadh, Saudi citizens and international human rights experts described the WTA Tour’s belief that it could contribute to social change through tennis as not conversant with reality. A spokesperson for the PIF declined to comment on its relationship with the kingdom’s rulers.

The WTA Tour had considered signing a deal with Saudi Arabia as early as summer 2023, but balked at criticism from key figures in the history of women’s tennis, including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. The 2023 edition of the Tour Finals instead went to Cancun, Mexico, where it was played in high winds in front of temporary stadia and on courts that players described as uneven and dangerous.

Saudi Arabia has since established itself as sponsor of both the women’s and men’s tennis rankings, and last month confirmed the arrival of an ATP Masters 1000 tournament, to be played as early as 2028.

The WTA Tour’s deal with the Ministry of Sport guaranteed total prize money of some $15 million, equal to what the men play for at their season-ending ATP Tour Finals, currently held in Turin, Italy. The WTA deal expires after next year’s tournament, and Archer said talks to extend it are ongoing.

“More to come,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Sports Business, Culture, Tennis, Women's Tennis

2025 The Athletic Media Company

Click here to read article