RIYADH: The highly anticipated Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Finals Championship will start on Saturday. The mega event will be hosted for the first time in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) at the King Saud University Indoor Arena in Riyadh, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
The SPA said that the championship runs until November 9 and is arranged by the Saudi Tennis Federation under the supervision of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) Ministry of Sport, with sponsorship from the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The event also marks the season-ending finals of the WTA Tour for 2024 and will also feature the world’s top players competing in a round-robin format in both doubles and singles. With prize money also exceeding $15 million, the singles champion will also receive the Billie Jean King Trophy, while the doubles champions will also be awarded the Martina Navratilova Trophy, the SPA said.
According to the SPA, some of the world’s top-ranked players will also participate, including Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (world No. 1), Pole Iga Swiatek (world No. 2), and the 2023 champions, Americans Coco Gauff as well as Jessica Pegula.
Other contestants include Italian Jasmine Paolini, Kazakh Elena Rybakina, China’s Qinwen Zheng, and Czech Barbora Krejcikova, the SPA reported.
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Similarly, in addition, the top eight doubles sides will compete, consisting of the following pairings: Latvian Jelena Ostapenko and Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok, Chinese Shuai Zhang and Belgian Elise Mertens, Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealander Erin Routliffe, Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, American Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Australian Ellen Perez, Americans Desirae Krawczyk and Caroline Dolehide, American Taylor Townsend and Czech Katerina Siniakova and Chinese Hao-Ching Chan and Russian Veronika Kudermetova.
The WTA Finals will also be hosted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for three consecutive years, starting in 2024. The event is also part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) initiative to promote women’s tennis and represents a significant milestone in its history of hosting major global events and activities.
