“Finally. You see the value. We’ll get paid what we deserve. Sign me,” the Australian posted on his Twitter account, linking to a post reporting the PIF’s possible entry.
ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi recently said he was having “positive” talks with the PIF about investing in tennis. The “Mail Sport” reports that the NextGen tennis final, the competition for the eight best U21 players in the world at the end of the year, will probably be moved to Jeddah.
The Saudi sovereign wealth fund has already made its mark on other sports and invested heavily.
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In golf, the LIV Tour was set up to compete with the PGA Tour, in English football the Premier League club Newcastle United was taken over and football stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema were lured into their own league with crazy offers.
There are also reports of a £16 billion bid to buy the rights to Formula 1.
Gaudenzi: “This is not a video game”
Gaudenzi still wants to preserve the values of tennis when Saudi Arabia enters tennis. Investors must “respect the history of the sport and the product and work with current stakeholders instead of working against them,” the ATP chairman told the Financial Times.
“You have to preserve something that is almost sacred, namely the rules of the game,” added the Italian, who couldn’t resist a nudge towards golf: “It’s not a video game. If you’re a golf fan, you want the best See players compete against each other. They want a leaderboard and a simple story.”
Diriyah Cup as a pioneer
There were first points of contact between tennis and Saudi Arabia last year. In December, some of the world’s best players met in the desert state for an exhibition tournament at the Diriyah Tennis Cup. Among others, the German number one Alexander Zverev was there – and Kyrgios.
In the long run, the biggest move could be moving the ATP Finals to Saudi Arabia, as the four Grand Slams are not controlled by the ATP Tour and Gaudenzi and play no role in potential negotiations.
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2023-06-27 13:33:45
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