The least surprising news in world tennis was finally announced when the ATP and SURJ Sports – part of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) – announced a new Masters 1000 tournament will be hosted in Saudi Arabia from “as early as 2028”.
The exact time slot in the calendar, as well as the host city and venue for the event, have yet to be announced but SURJ Sports CEO Danny Townsend is confident they will be able to “deliver a world-class tennis tournament” by 2028.
Why is this announcement a big deal?
This is the first-ever expansion of the Masters 1000 category, which was first introduced in 1990 with the inception of the ATP Tour.
A collection of nine of the most prestigious tournaments on the men’s tennis calendar, the Masters 1000s are just behind the four Grand Slams and the ATP Finals in terms of status, ranking points allocated, and prize money on offer.
Adding a 10th Masters 1000 tournament to an already stacked ATP calendar is a significant change, one that could have a ripple effect on existing events and the current structure of the tour.
The ATP Tour is looking into optimising its calendar and several reports, including one from the newsletter Bounces, suggest this deal with SURJ includes a sum dedicated to a buy-back programme, which could allow the tour to buy back the licenses of some of the smaller tournaments in the 250 and 500 categories to reduce the congested schedule.
“One of the elements of our strategy was to enhance the premium product and obviously to grow the [1000] category, because ultimately we do believe that fans want to see the best players playing in the top events, and that is the Grand Slams and the Masters and the Finals in our sport,” said ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi in a media briefing last week.
“That's when all top players compete against each other. That's why the addition of a new Masters in an important region is something that we think is very important. They're also going to go through an incredible investment, they're going to raise the standards, they're going to raise the bar.”
What do we know so far?
While eight of the existing nine Masters 1000 tournaments are mandatory (meaning top players are obligated to participate or risk consequences affecting their ranking and bonus pool compensation), the Saudi event will be non-mandatory, joining Monte-Carlo as the only two in that category to hold that status.
It will also be staged over one week, unlike the majority of the other 1000s that have adopted a 12-day format, and will have a 56-player draw size.
Where this tournament will be slotted in the schedule will depend on the progress the ATP makes in their plans to optimise the calendar.
Gaudenzi has made it clear that no decision has been made regarding the scheduling of the Saudi tournament but he was happy to share that he prefers the event land in February, where two ATP 500s already exist in Doha and Dubai.
“That is definitely a preference and is our desire, but is also subject to the kind of limitation because that month is very crowded,” said the Italian.
The month of February currently has ATP tournaments spread across four regions, which Gaudenzi views as four different concurrent swings: indoor Europe (events such as Rotterdam and Montpellier), North America (Dallas, Delray Beach and Acapulco), Middle East (Doha and Dubai), and South America (Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago).
Gaudenzi would like to see February restricted to just two regions instead – South America and the Middle East – while rescheduling the other swings to better suited slots in the calendar.
Moving around events is a challenge and Gaudenzi says the tour will need the help of Tennis Australia, which currently monopolises the majority of January, in the calendar optimisation process.
“Having a South American swing and Middle East swing is a goal but it's a challenge to execute,” he added.
“We would welcome support from Tennis Australia obviously in that effort, for the sake of doing the best for the sport and we're working on that and I'm confident we can achieve it but we need time.”
How will Saudi Masters impact tennis in the region?
A robust Middle East swing already exists in tennis with a total of five tournaments (two men’s and three women’s) currently held across four weeks in the month of February each year.
The introduction of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open in 2023 extended the WTA’s Middle East swing to three consecutive weeks, starting in the UAE capital with a 500-level tournament, followed by 1000-level events in Doha and Dubai.
Abu Dhabi didn’t take away anything from the Doha and Dubai tournaments, which have been on the calendar since 2001, mostly because it belongs to a smaller category. No player will choose to miss mandatory 1000 events because they competed the week before in a 500.
The Abu Dhabi tournament simply bolstered the presence of women’s tennis in the region – the WTA Finals are staged in Riyadh every November – and provided more opportunities for women to compete in a location that was convenient for their busy travelling schedules.
The Saudi Masters is a different story. It would be understandable if the Doha and Dubai organisers feel like the new tournament could overshadow their own events, given it has a bigger draw and offers more points and higher prize money.
Securing a star-studded field across all three tournaments in the Gulf will be a real challenge, and organisers will have to dig deep into their pockets in order to lure top-10 players to their 500-level events.
Overall though, staging a Masters 1000 in the Middle East for the first time can be huge for tennis in the region. It will draw more eyeballs, and more investment, and drive interest in the sport like never before in this part of the world, which could lead to higher participation numbers and more opportunities for aspiring Arab players.
How deep is Saudi’s connection to professional tennis?
The announcement of the new Masters 1000 tournament is just the latest in a string of news tying Saudi Arabia, and the PIF, to tennis.
The Next Gen Finals, which take place in Jeddah, and WTA Finals held in Riyadh, are both sponsored by the PIF.
The sovereign fund has strategic partnerships with both the ATP and WTA tours that includes PIF being the official naming partner of the ATP and WTA rankings, the sponsorship of several key ATP Tour events and the recent launch of a next-generation technology platform, ATP Tennis IQ Powered by PIF.
The PIF also funds a first-of-its kind maternity programme for the WTA, and has signed endorsement deals with players like Matteo Berrettini, Paula Badosa, and Arthur Fils.
Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal is an ambassador for the Saudi Tennis Federation.
The Six Kings Slam big-money exhibition event that is staged as part of the annual Riyadh Season is also backed by the PIF, and it awards the champion of the six-player showpiece a whopping $6 million.
Townsend ruled out that the introduction of the Saudi Masters would replace any of the existing events taking place in the kingdom.
He added that events like the Next Gen Finals, WTA Finals and Six Kings Slam have helped “demonstrate there is an appetite for tennis in Saudi Arabia. The crowds that have been growing over the years as we've had more and more events I think demonstrates that as an investor we're going into a space where we have a lot of customers and fans that want to consume the sport and that was something that Six Kings Slam helped us validate.”
The Saudis have long expressed their interest in staging a combined top-tier men’s and women’s event but that vision is currently on the backburner in the wake of the ATP Masters 1000 announcement. That, however, can change in the future.
“We're very cognizant of serving both men's and women's games. Obviously having them on at the same time or at least in sequence in Saudi Arabia would be great,” said Townsend.
“That wasn't possible at this point in time. So there are benefits from having both men and women playing at the same time, I know there's uplifts in ticket sales and a bunch of other commercial elements that we would certainly want to benefit from.
“But that's all in the future, we'd certainly never say never and explore it if it became an option.”
