Tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert say internet hosting the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia can be a “step backward” for ladies’s tennis.
The WTA got here near staging the 2023 Finals in Saudi, earlier than going to Cancun in Mexico.
Nevertheless, the WTA remains to be contemplating shifting the season-ending occasion to Riyadh for future tournaments.
Navratilova and Evert mentioned this is able to “symbolize not progress, however vital regression” for the game.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post,, external the pair – who dominated ladies’s tennis throughout 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 in regards to the potential transfer and requested the governing physique to begin an “open, sincere dialogue” to query “whether or not ‘progress’ and ‘engagement’ is admittedly attainable” within the Gulf state.