ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi has renewed his desire to bring more tennis to Saudi Arabia after the Next Gen Finals was staged in Jeddah. Following the move of the 21-and-under event, there have been rumours of a 10th Masters 1000 being held in the country. Carlos Alcaraz is among the players who have already committed to playing in Saudi and the world No 2 has already scheduled an exhibition match with Novak Djokovic in Riyadh this month.
Saudi Arabia recently staged its first official tennis tournament and the nation could be set to acquire more events after Gaudenzi shared his hope of continuing to work together. While the country has hosted some exhibitions in the past, the recent Next Gen Finals marked the first ATP-sanctioned tournament in Saudi.
However, the event is limited to players under the age of 22 and does not award ranking points, so Saudi would need a regular ATP event in order to draw all of the top players. And that could well be on the cards once the tour’s chairman works out the logistics. “We are exploring a number of different opportunities,” Gaudenzi told The National following the Next Gen Finals.
“And we are here obviously, so we want to work with Saudi. I think we had very good relations the last couple of years, very interesting discussions. They have expressed the willingness and the desire to do more in sport and in tennis.”
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However, it won’t be as simple as creating a tournament given the intense nature of the tennis tour, which is saturated with events for 11 months of the year. The Italian ATP boss continued: “I think the biggest challenge on our side is the calendar. In all honesty, it’s very tight, it’s very jammed.
“But the desire for us to actually be here and be in the region, because we value the Middle East a lot, is there. I think we’re going to have to work it out together in phases or we’re looking at all opportunities. We don’t have the solutions at the moment, but we’re definitely going to keep discussing with all the parties.”
Although it could take a while to figure something out, there is no concern that some of the ATP’s top players will be against competing in Saudi Arabia. There has already been some division in other sports, with the breakaway LIV Golf tour causing controversy, but several tennis players have already made it clear that they intend to compete in Saudi if given the opportunity.
