RIYADH — Women’s Tennis Association chief executive officer Portia Archer has defended staging the WTA Tour Finals in Saudi Arabia in her first major address to the media since starting the role in July.

“We often play in environments and in countries that have different customs, different cultures, and in some cases different value systems than I might have personally or that the WTA may have as an organisation based in the United States,” Archer said in a news conference before play commences on Saturday 2 November.

“We’ve never actually had any issues with freedom of expression, at least not that I’m aware of,” Archer added of previous events held in countries with similar policies to Saudi Arabia.

When pressed on saying that the WTA’s values do not necessarily need to align with the countries hosting their tournaments, Archer said that she misspoke.

“My intention was to really say that we respect the values, even if they differ from other countries that we find ourselves in and compete in.”

In April this year, the WTA announced a three-year deal with the Saudi Tennis Federation (STF) to host the Tour Finals in Riyadh, with a prize pool of over $15million (£11.6m). Archer on Friday said that this deal had been made in consultation with WTA players, and satisfied the goals and objectives of the tour at large. The WTA has hosted events in Qatar and Dubai, where homosexuality is illegal, for over 20 years.

Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized Saudi Arabia’s record on freedom of expression, including the criminalization of homosexuality and the ‘Personal Status Law,’ which requires women to obtain a male guardian’s permission to marry. Saudi Arabia ranks 126th out of 146 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index.

“It’s difficult for me to say where we would ‘draw the line,’ so to speak,” Archer said.

“I wouldn’t say just ‘try’, we do stay in alignment with WTA values in that we make sure that our players, our fans, our staff are in environments that are in alignment with our values.

“I don’t feel that there’s some limit, but I certainly know that there are cases and instances where we won’t go to certain countries if we don’t have that comfort.”

The WTA and its men’s equivalent, the ATP, have not held tournaments in Russia since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago. The WTA also stopped holding events in China for nearly two years after the disappearance of Peng Shuai in 2021.

Shuai accused Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier of China, of sexual assault in social media posts that quickly disappeared, prompting the WTA to withdraw tournaments from the country in boycott. It ended that boycott 16 months later, and Shuai described the situation as a “misunderstanding” in a controlled interview with French newspaper L’Equipe.

Zheng Qinwen and the other finalists have been speaking ahead of the tournament in Riyadh. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images for WTA)

“The situation has shown no sign of changing. We have concluded we will never fully secure those goals, and it will be our players and tournaments who ultimately will be paying an extraordinary price for their sacrifices,” said a WTA press release last April.

The players involved in the WTA Finals said on Friday that they felt comfortable playing in Saudi Arabia. Coco Gauff, the American world No. 3, said: “Obviously I’m very aware of the situation in Saudi. My view on it is that sport can have a way to open doors to people and to want change you have to see it. I think sport is the easiest way to kind of introduce that.”

She and fellow American Jessica Pegula said they had been heavily involved in discussions about hosting the Finals in Riyadh and were convinced that there would be sufficient social good through things like coaching clinics for local girls.

Prior to the signing of the deal in spring this year, American tennis legend Billie Jean King took a similar position; in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova took the opposite view.

“We fully appreciate the importance of respecting diverse cultures and religions,” they wrote.

“It is because of this, and not despite it, that we oppose the awarding of the tour’s crown jewel tournament to Riyadh. The WTA’s values sit in stark contrast to those of the proposed host.”

Archer meanwhile said that the organisation had not briefed its stars on what is and what isn’t acceptable to say in the country. In the lead-up to last year’s Tour Finals in Cancun, where conditions and the hastiness of erecting the required infrastructure led world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka to say she felt “disrespected,” the organization briefed players on how to respond to questions about playing in Saudi Arabia, as reported in The Athletic.

“Players can express themselves freely,” Archer said, adding that they were advised on things like appropriate clothing.

Sabalenka opens singles play at the event against Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen on Saturday.

‘The heart of the conflict is a philosophical difference’

Analysis from senior tennis writer Matt Futterman

Bringing the WTA Tour Finals to Saudi Arabia was never going to be comfortable, as Portia Archer, the tour’s chief executive, learned Friday.

The heart of the conflict is a philosophical difference between a kingdom that does not give women equal rights and considers homosexuality a crime and a tour whose founding principle was equality.

For the past two years, no one has had to look very far to find people steadfast in the belief that playing in Saudi Arabia is a step too far, even though the tour already has stops in Qatar and Dubai — kingdoms with similar policies to those of Saudi Arabia. Saudi funds already have close ties to tennis, including Public Investment Fund (PIF) sponsorship of the ATP and WTA rankings, and the hosting of the ATP Tour Next Gen Finals and exhibitions like the ‘Six Kings Slam.’

Several of the biggest names in the sport, including Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert, have long been among the loudest critics of the deal for the marquee event in women’s tennis to join the relationship. Their opposition, including a January 2024 op-ed in the Washington Post, was partly responsible for a delay in the announcement, according to people briefed on the deal between the WTA and STF who requested anonymity to protect relationships.

Martina Navratilova (left) and Chris Evert at last year’s WTA Tour Finals in Cancun. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

The longtime rivals and close friends pushed hard for the tour to resist Saudi Arabia’s lucrative offer to host the Tour Finals. They believed that the tour was putting the cart before the horse, trying to be a force for change rather than requiring change before bringing the respectability of its biggest event of the year to the kingdom and participating in the process known as sportswashing.

“Bigger changes need to happen first before we go there,” Navratilova said in an interview with The Athletic earlier this year.

“I can’t go there and announce that I am gay. People say, well, just behave. But what does that mean?”

In summer 2023, fellow tennis legend Billie Jean King, who like Navratilova is openly gay, was supportive of what were then proposals for such an event.

“I’m a huge believer in engagement — I don’t think you change unless you engage,” she said at a WTA anniversary event, as reported by The New York Times.

Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, was at the forefront of pushing back against Evert and Navratilova.

In a lengthy post in response to Navratilova and Evert’s op-ed, Bandar Al Saud wrote on X that by trying to keep the WTA Finals from going to Saudi Arabia, the stars had turned their back on women they had inspired.

To those who seek to deny our women the same opportunities of others, what I hear clearly is that there is no seat for us at their table. But we welcome you at ours.

A response to: pic.twitter.com/JuIqMTTNht

— Reema Bandar Al-Saud (@rbalsaud) January 30, 2024

“Perfection cannot be the price for admission,” Bandar Al Saud wrote. “For a tennis tournament or any other once-closed space that our women want to enter.”

(Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images for WTA)