Saudi Arabia is light years away from being taken seriously when it comes to tennis

Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan returns a shot to Qinwen Zheng of China in their round robin singles match during Day 3 of the 2024 WTA Finals Riyadh
Elena Rybakina returns a shot to Qinwen Zheng in Riyadh - Getty Images/Matthew Stockman

Shortly before Saturday’s opening match in Riyadh, the PA system played a sort of mission statement for the WTA Finals, delivered in the aspirational tone of a wealth-management ad.

“Today, on these courts, women stand tall not just to play but to rise,” exclaimed a breathless voice-over. “In a land where tradition meets change, this is a new era, where the air hums with possibilities.”

As things turned out, one of those possibilities is that the WTA Finals could fail to inspire any tangible interest among the local citizens.

A feeble audience of around 400 people saw Iga Swiatek win Sunday’s first match, dropping to more like 300 for Coco Gauff in the evening. As the British tennis icon Tim Henman told Telegraph Sport,  “It’s extremely disappointing when you’ve got the world’s best players performing in front of a crowd like that today.”

We should at least acknowledge that the stands were a good deal fuller when the in-form Qinwen Zheng took the stage on days one and three. Yet Qinwen’s appeal seemed to be concentrated among Chinese expats. Together, her fans made King Saud University feel like an outpost of Beijing.

So where were all the thobe-clad Saudi men, who had gathered in their thousands to watch Carlos Alcaraz, Rafael Nadal and Jannik Sinner at the recent Six Kings Slam?

Coco Gauff of the United States talks to the media after defeating Jessica Pegula of the United States in her first round robin match on Day 2 of WTA Finals Riyadh
Coco Gauff after her match which was watched by only 300 fans - Getty Images/Robert Prange

Saudis used to selling themselves

The subject of a spectacular six-minute promotional video, that event was sold with real gusto, and the crowds filled an 8,000-seat stadium just a couple of miles away. By comparison, the opening stages of the WTA Finals have felt as second-class as the status of females within the kingdom.

Another missing constituency, over the past couple of days, has been those same local women who are supposed to be the target for this whole controversial exercise. Which rather undermines the message trotted out by the whole WTA operation over the weekend.

So far, players and administrators alike have declined to mention the massive prize-money fund (a record £11.75 million) as the motivation for bringing these Finals to Saudi Arabia. Instead, they have focused on inspiring the local female population.

Judy Murray, who has been hired by the Saudi Tennis Federation to lead coaching clinics, put it most succinctly when she told Sky Sports that “You couldn’t ask for a better shop window for tennis and especially for women’s tennis.” But a shop window isn’t much use if there’s no one looking through it.

After two previous chaotic editions of the WTA Finals had flopped in Texas and Cancun, the decision to sign this three-year deal was taken with player approval. “We definitely tried to talk to people that are from the area,” world No 6 Jessica Pegula told Telegraph Sport on Friday. “There wasn’t anyone that made us feel worse to the point where we were like, ‘We don’t want to be here.’”

This is understandable, because the Saudis talk a terrific game. They are used to selling themselves, and to accentuating the positives. And it is true that Mohammed Bin Salman – the 39-year-old son of King Salman who effectively runs the country – is instinctively more liberal on religious issues than his predecessors. Since he came to power, women have been permitted to drive for the first time, and to follow a much more relaxed dress code.

Aryna Sabalenka walks on court to play against Jasmine Paolini of Italy in their round robin singles match during Day 3 of the 2024 WTA Finals Riyadh
Aryna Sabalenka walks on court to play Jasmine Paolini in Riyadh - Getty Images/Clive Brunskill

Women had better not complain

But MBS also has a downside, which will not have been mentioned to the players. He is obsessed with control. And while women may enjoy more freedom in their daily lives than they did a decade ago, they had better not complain about ongoing government restrictions such as being subject to a male guardian

In the summer, a 29-year-old fitness trainer who criticised that rule online was sentenced to 11 years in prison on account of “terrorism offences”. She has since reportedly suffered beatings from guards and fellow inmates, including an attack on her face with a sharpened pen.

What does all this have to do with small crowds? Well, from the administrators’ perspective, the whole “inspire a generation of women” angle feels like a fig leaf: a defensive manoeuvre, used to head off “sportswashing” accusations and justify what is primarily a business decision. It is a feeling that will only grow if the WTA Finals fly under the radar for the majority of the working week.

Admittedly, Monday’s vibe was definitely buzzier than Sunday’s. At the time of writing, world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka was wrapping up an entertaining win over Jasmine Paolini. While the 5,000-seat stadium was perhaps a little under half-full, that’s not a total disaster for a Monday evening.

But if you are going to fly against the wishes of so many tennis fans – while taking on such legends of the game as Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova – you had better stage an event with real electricity. So far, these Finals are not shining brightly enough to distract from their shadowy background.