It is the biggest tournament outside of the Grand Slams in terms of prize money and ranking points on offer but the venue of this year’s WTA Finals remains a mystery.
The end-of-season tournament features the eight highest-ranked players on the women’s Tour battling it out in a round-robin format with the top two players of each group progressing to the knockout stages. In 2022 France’s Caroline Garcia won the biggest title of her career at the event and earned $1.57M in prize money when it was held in Fort Worth, Texas. It was the third time in a row that the WTA Finals has been staged at a different venue.
In 2019 China signed a deal to host the event for a set amount of years in the city of Shenzhen before the WTA decided to suspend all of their tournaments in the country due to concerns that authorities were censoring former world No.1 Peng Shuai. Shuai made allegations of sexual assault against a former government official. The governing body of women’s tennis has decided to end their boycott this season but there is still no word regarding the season-ending tournament.
Ons Jabeur made her debut at the WTA Finals last year where she became the first Arab player in history to do so. Speaking to reporters at the Western and Southern Open, the three-time major finalist admits she is feeling frustrated about the current situation.
“It’s frustrating. I don’t know what’s happening and why we don’t know yet. We are waiting,” she said.
“I heard a few cities. I’m not sure where. Some say Saudi. I’m not sure. It could be a great option for me, to be honest. But I need to qualify first and then see.”
Saudi Arabia is known to be moving closer to investing in tennis via their public Investment Fund but there has been no indication of the country hosting the WTA Finals. Ubitennis has previously confirmed via a source familiar with the situation that the Next Gen Finals will be held in Jeddah after the Davis Cup finals with a contract expected to be signed at some point this month.
Meanwhile, China has let out virtually no information regarding their intentions except one document. In January this year, an article published on the regional Shenzhen Government website said ‘The third (goal) is to focus on consumption growth…hosting high-level events such as the Shenzhen marathon, Shenzhen WTA Finals etc.’ The article was a summary of a High Quality Development Conference that took place with attendees including regional politicians.
“I wish they can take the decision as soon as possible so we would know where we want to go and the fans would know so we don’t have empty stadiums and we can promote, you know, the WTA Finals as soon as possible,” Jabeur commented.
It is not the first time that the WTA has left it until later in the year to announce the host of their premier event. In 2022 it wasn’t until September that they published details of the Fort Worth tournament.
