Tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert say internet hosting the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia can be a “step backward” for girls’s tennis.
The WTA got here near staging the 2023 Finals in Saudi, earlier than going to Cancun in Mexico.
Nevertheless, the WTA continues to be contemplating transferring the season-ending occasion to Riyadh for future tournaments.
Navratilova and Evert stated this is able to “symbolize not progress, however important regression” for the game.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Put up,, exterior the pair – who dominated ladies’s tennis through the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s – described the WTA Finals because the “crown jewel” of the ladies’s tour.
They criticised the WTA Board for not consulting gamers concerning the potential transfer and requested the governing physique to begin an “open, sincere dialogue” to query “whether or not ‘progress’ and ‘engagement’ is absolutely attainable” within the Gulf state.
