Saudi Arabia has reportedly made a bombshell $2 billion USD ($A3bn) offer to unite the men’s and women’s tennis tours, according to The Telegraph.
The offer was reportedly tabled to the nine ATP Masters 1000 tournament bosses on Saturday, and has a 90-day expiration date – pushing the tours to make a decision quickly on whether they will follow the Saudi offer, or accept a rival ‘Premium Tour’ plan led by the four grand slams.
According to the Telegraph, the deal would see Saudi Arabia host a Masters 1000 tournament in the first week of the season – directly rivalling the mixed-gender United Cup team competition that is currently hosted in Australia in the lead-up to the Australian Open.
Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley “strongly opposed” that idea which has been pushed for over a year, the Telegraph claims.
The Saudi offer currently does not include the Grand Slam tournaments, the Telegraph reports, which themselves are leading talks over a major revamp of the tennis tours under what is being called the ‘Premium Tour’.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) recently took a minor sponsorship deal with the ATP (men’s tour) to sponsor the rankings chart, while the WTA (women’s tour) is already expected to host its year-end finals tournament in Riyadh at the end of the season. Under the proposed deal, the men’s finals would also be held in Saudi Arabia.
The proposed deal would see the men’s and women’s tours united under a new banner – the PIF Tour – with potentially hefty financial benefits for players and tournaments.
The audacious bid is being led by ATP chief Andrea Gaudenzi, an Italian former top-20 player. The ATP and WTA tours have had a tense relationship with the grand slams ever since the ATP stripped Wimbledon of its ranking points in 2022 after the tournament banned Russian and Belarusian players.
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Now, Gaudenzi is going toe-to-toe with the four slams and their proposed Premium Tour model, a planned overhaul of the calendar in which Australia’s Craig Tiley is a key figure.
Gaudenzi himself skipped the Australian Open – where Tiley briefed players over the Premium Tour proposal – claiming he had Covid-19, only to travel to Saudi Arabia for talks with PIF.
Under the Premium Tour model, a new circuit would unite men’s and women’s tennis, offering equal pay to both genders. Currently, while the slams offer equal pay, lower-level tournaments do not – meaning it would be a significant milestone for the women’s game.
Between 11 and 14 events would join the slams in a new circuit for top players, while a second-tier ‘Development Tour’ would be established (encompassing the current 250s and 500s).
The added events would include the nine current ATP Masters 1000 tournaments – Indian Wells, Miami Open, Madrid Open, Italian Open, Canadian Open, Cincinnati Masters, Shanghai Masters, Paris Masters and Monte-Carlo Masters.
These events would last for 10 days each and become mixed-gender.
Effectively, it means that the top 100 players would play significantly fewer events per year, reducing their load that has long been a sore point. Players would also be given a significantly longer off-season, another major point of contention in recent years.
The ATP and WTA tours have been in talks over a merger for some months, with the WTA currently in a weak financial state and having sold off 20 per cent of their commercial rights to a venture capital firm. Currently, the ATP brings in more than twice the revenue of the women’s tour.
Now tennis is facing a momentous choice between two opposing models. Follow the slams or follow Saudi Arabia.
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