The proposal has traction and would revolutionize a game that has caught the attention of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
In her glory days as a professional tennis player, Gabriela Sabatini went from child prodigy to icon. But when she turned 26, the 1990 U. S. Open champion was exhausted. Among his frustrations, a chorus that has resonated with too many players over the years: the overly long season. “December is the only weak month, but as the games resume in January, you only have 10 days off and then you have to train,” Sabatini said in an interview with The Guardian in 2003.
For decades, the length of the season has put pressure on players and this is one of many court cases that have gone unanswered. Players who are not in the top 100 also continue to struggle to break even, with inflation eating into the ITF World Tennis Tour’s revenue. modest prize money. The calendar is fragmented and illogical and does not minimise the distances between tournaments or the carbon footprint of the sport.
Meanwhile, the game’s governing bodies — the four Grand Slam tournaments, the Professional Tennis Association, the Women’s Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation — have competed rather than worked in combination to improve the game. Since the beginning of the Open era, more than 50 years ago, one of the few issues of agreement is that the game is too fractured to reach its potential.
Enter the First Round, a new format that is now implemented across the 4 Grand Slam tournaments. If successful, they would reform the existing formula and replace the face of the sport.
While the proposals were fully developed, proponents of this excursion must create a streamlined product to update the existing inefficient and lengthy 48-week affair. The field trip will be narrowed down to 10 primary events with drawings of 96 male and female players throughout the four primaries. , a year-end final, and a team event. Approximately one hundred players would qualify each year, and fewer players would participate in a separate progression excursion and be eligible to reach the First Round at the end of the year.
Tennis is fostered through other sports and the First Round is obviously an attempt to copy the format of the Formula 1 Grand Prix. These concepts have advantages, such as a shorter season and the alignment of men’s and women’s excursions with equivalent prize money, but it also resembles the tennis edition of the European Super League presented in football. It’s an excursion aimed at elite players that can make a lot of money, but it threatens to erase many of the sport’s existing virtues.
One of the main reasons tennis is so popular is its global reach. Despite this, some leaders of the game seem to be interested in Anglo-Saxon countries, parts of Western Europe, and the sums of money provided through the oil-rich countries of the Middle East and China.
This was evident in Sports Illustrated’s interview with Lew Sherr, executive leader of the American Tennis Association, who attempted to capitalize on the merits of the First Round. “You can have only six chances in any given week,” he said. “Fans have a hard time knowing where they deserve to be seen. Why is [Jannik] Sinner betting on Rotterdam and [Carlos] Alcaraz somewhere in South America?
The little-known places in South America that have had the opportunity to glimpse the essence of Alcaraz: Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, two global cities.
The fluidity of the leaderboards is also part of the magic of the circuit, with the lowest-ranked players able to progress temporarily at any time of the year. One day a player can compete on the ATP Challenger Tour, the next day they can. Alcaraz in a major. Level 500 and 250 tournaments would be crushed, and players who didn’t make it to the top 30 would become cannon fodder for the elite, with opportunities to win tournaments drastically reduced.
As officials contemplate the option of a First Round, those concepts are, in some tactics, a reaction to Saudi Arabia’s emerging presence in the sport. The initiative was orchestrated through Craig Tiley, chief executive of Tennis Australia, whose organisation would suffer a major blow if Saudi Arabia were to host a Masters 1000 event earlier this year.
After showing interest with several exhibitions in recent years, adding a meeting between Novak Djokovic and Alcaraz in Riyadh in 2023, and the appointment of Rafael Nadal as ambassador for the Saudi Tennis Federation, the Saudis, despite everything, have come to tennis.
In February, the ATP and the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, reached a lucrative strategic agreement, integrating the PIF into several of their initiatives, adding as the title sponsor of their rankings. At the Miami Open, his presence is remarkable, from his logo on the back panel to the incessant sponsored posts on social media.
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Saudi Arabia’s developing profile in professional tennis may take the game in an absolutely different direction than the proposed First Round. The PIF needs to host a historic event on the calendar and have a strong presence in the tennis ecosystem. Meetings with Andrea Gaudenzi, the ATP’s chief executive, in Saudi Arabia resulted in the PIF’s bid of more than $1 billion (£790 million) combined with the ATP and WTA.
The ATP has indicated to The Telegraph that it has opened the bidding procedure for a tenth Masters 1000 tournament and it is clear that the interested parties are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Tennis Australia. Although discussions around the First Round are still in their early stages and it is unclear how they will fare, Saudi Arabia’s growing presence and influence in tennis is undeniable.
On Thursday, Saudi Arabia made its biggest breakthrough in the sport when the WTA finally announced that the WTA Finals would be held in Riyadh as part of a three-year deal starting in 2024.
For months, it had been an open secret that its main event would be held in Saudi Arabia, prompting the WTA last year to provide players with trouble talking about the issue. While most players echoed those issues to speak or declined to comment, at Wimbledon, a dissenting opinion came from Daria Kasatkina, the top-ranked gay singles player.
“It’s less difficult for men because they feel pretty smart there,” said Kasatkina, who travels and blogs with his girlfriend, figure skater Natalia Zabiiako. “We don’t feel the same. Money speaks in our world right now. For me, I don’t think it’s all about money.
As a new European clay-court season begins, tennis is at an inflection point with odds ahead and, with them, a lot of uncertainty and doubts.