LTA rejects Saudi Arabia bid for Queen’s sponsorship

British tennis chiefs have rejected shock ATP proposals to partner with Saudi Arabia as the Middle East nation makes the sport its latest target for domination this year.

The Public Investment Fund was homing in on a remarkable branding deal for the Queen’s and Eastbourne tournaments before the Lawn Tennis Association dismissed the offer.

In a move that would have dismayed English grass-court purists, international tour executives had thrashed out terms that would have seen prominent advertising for a Riyadh brand.

Well-placed sources said the partnership was plotted as the first stage of even grander plans for Saudi Arabia in tennis after multi-billion-pound projects in golf and football.

However, a lucrative proposal negotiated between Saudi and the ATP to include the two summer tournaments is understood to have been flatly rejected by the LTA board.

“We’ve declined to participate in this sponsorship proposal put to us by the ATP and PIF,” the LTA told Telegraph Sport in a statement.

The Saudi-ATP proposal was to include the two summer tournaments in a package sponsorship deal with several other events, including Masters 1000s in Miami and Madrid. The choice of Queen’s and Eastbourne – smaller tournaments that are worth 500 and 250 points respectively – underlined the UK’s importance to Saudi interests.

However, although the decision to turn down the deal was made solely by the LTA board, some sources close to the talks suggest that the deal would not have been welcomed at the All England Club, which is one of the most cautious organisations in world sport in choosing branding partnerships.

Increased Saudi involvement is nevertheless all but certain in international tennis, which has experienced years of debate over the best way to avoid the chaos seen in golf during the LIV Golf project.

Saudi officials have been in direct talks with top tennis executives for more than a year about multiple potential investments. In October, the country announced it would host two tennis exhibitions in late December, including a match between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. Four sources with close commercial dealings in Riyadh say tennis is a major priority for the country.

Tennis has long been hamstrung by its disunited governance, which sees players benefit from around 25 per cent of the sport’s revenues, when many team sports secure 50 per cent. As well as Saudi interest in major investment, another challenge to the status quo comes from the rival player union founded by 24-times major champion Djokovic – the PTPA.

Telegraph Sport detailed in September how, in response, the men’s and women’s tennis tours had taken the first steps towards a historic merger, inviting executives and tournament representatives to a two-day summit in London.

Talks will resume in Melbourne during the imminent Australian Open, with another potential scenario involving a so-called Premier Tier that would elevate the four majors and 10 Masters 1000 events over rank-and-file tournaments in places such as Antwerp and Delray Beach.

In the midst of this ferment, ATP boss Andrea Gaudenzi has not travelled to Australia after a recent bout of Covid. Meanwhile, the ATP has also cancelled its traditional players’ meeting on the eve of the Australian Open, citing an intention to reschedule it sometime in the spring.

Among the women players, at least, there is likely to be more resistance to Saudi investment than there has been in football, golf and F1 around sportswashing.

Saudis want to host new Masters 1000 event in Riyadh

The WTA had to shelve proposals to stage last year’s finals event in Riyadh due to public opposition from the likes of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert – who had both highlighted Saudi Arabia’s regressive stance on women.

However, Saudi’s desire to become part of the tennis establishment – including potentially adding a new Masters 1000 event in Riyadh to the men’s tour – is still a discussion point, and the nation remains a frontrunner to stage the WTA finals event this year.

Although the ATP led negotiations with Saudi on sponsorship for Queen’s and Eastbourne, proposals have since been handed to the LTA, which runs the English events played in the build-up to Wimbledon. IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate that is part of Endeavor, owns the two Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Miami. Those two IMG tournaments were initially targeted for outright purchase by Saudi, which already hosts the Diriyah Tennis Cup exhibition in December, but the two parties are understood to have spent many months in communication without managing to agree a deal.

Sources underlined that the ATP proposal was not to replace online car retailer Cinch as title sponsor for Queen’s or Rothesay, the pensions specialist, for Eastbourne. The ATP declined to comment on the plans on Wednesday.

The LTA digs in but Saudis will stop at nothing for tennis land grab

By Molly McElwee

The signs have been there for years, but it seems like tennis - and British tennis at that - is at threat of being submerged by Saudi Arabia’s wave of sporting conquests.

The news broken by Telegraph Sport, that the Public Investment Fund (PIF) had been closing in on a deal to sponsor Queen’s and Eastbourne, will take few by surprise. The Lawn Tennis Association’s rejection of that deal, which was put to them by the ATP, perhaps will.

The cynics that have followed how Saudi investment has infiltrated Premier League football, golf and boxing could perhaps not imagine a sporting body putting up a fight at this stage. The evidence unfortunately suggests that this could be the last moment of resistance as tennis becomes the latest sport to succumb to the lure of the Saudi’s bottomless pit of cash.

A sponsorship offer for a string of high-level events (the deal the ATP was hoping to strike also included the Madrid and Miami Open) is not the same thing as a breakaway tour, in the way of LIV Golf. But it is still significant and a sign of the next steps as the Saudis continue to be gradually let into tennis.

The past few years in sport have proven that no protective force can keep out a kingdom at liberty to offer such eye-watering sums of money. That would be especially true in tennis which remains so fragmented at the very top.

Seven different stakeholders govern tennis - the four grand slams, the two tours and the International Tennis Federation - and these factions are all constantly trying to elbow their way the top of the relevance charts. They are historically bad at working in harmony too, and not afraid to go after each other (see the response to Wimbledon’s ban on Russian players). The Saudi offers are more likely to land in the midst of their squabbling.

This latest deal may not have been accepted by the LTA, but it is one of a number of indications that tennis executives look intent on opening the door fully to the Saudis in due course.

Ahead of last season’s Wimbledon, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said his talks with the Saudi Investment Fund had been “positive” and then the announcement came that the ATP’s Next Gen Finals had struck a five-year hosting deal in Jeddah. December marked the first time tennis hosted a professional event in the kingdom.

On Tuesday, prominent tennis journalist Jon Wertheim reported on X that the ATP had posted a vacancy on LinkedIn for a partnerships and business development manager. Job location? Saudi Arabia.

The WTA, which has been in a precarious financial position, was reportedly approached by Saudi Arabia to host the end-of-season finals last year. Vocal opposition from the likes of Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert is said to have contributed to the deal being stalled, but it remains likely that the tour will head there this year.

WTA founder and tennis’s moral compass Billie Jean King has even said she sees it as an unavoidable future for the women’s tour, and was not against the idea as long as the governing body pushed for social change in the country.

There have been exhibition events hosted in Saudi Arabia during the off-season for years, and this past December Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz picked up big fat cheques for playing a match together in Riyadh. Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur was there too, and is also now sponsored by female fitness brand Kayanee, which was established by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

For a time, the idea of Saudi involvement in sport was tip-toed around by athletes who feared backlash, but players on the tennis tour now seem far less afraid of the consequences.

Even Andy Murray, who for so long had said he would never play in the kingdom due to human rights concerns and turned down six-figure exhibition appearance offers, softened his views last summer. He admitted that he might find it more difficult to avoid professional events with ranking points on offer, saying “unfortunately it’s the way that a lot of sports seem to be going now”.

It is a measure of how sports washing ultimately works, as some players do not seem to clock any element of controversy with the idea of partnering with a state that criminalises homosexuality, rejects women’s rights and restricts free speech. Meanwhile, others feel at a loss on how to fight against it.

Tennis has not jumped head first into Saudi involvement but rather slowly crept towards the possibility. Now arriving at this juncture where the LTA are trying to fend off a more tangible commitment, the question is how long this last stand can hold for.