Jeddah in Saudi Arabia is the leading bidder for the season-ending NextGen Finals, tennis’s first serious steps into the kingdom… taking the under-21s tournament from Milan
- Jeddah is the leading bidder to host the season-ending NextGen Finals
- It would be the first formal steps for the sport of tennis into Saudi Arabia
- The tournament for players under 21 has been held in Milan, Italy, since 2017
Tennis is set to take its first formal steps into Saudi Arabia later this year by moving the official season-end NextGen Finals to the Middle Eastern kingdom.
Jeddah is said to be the leading bidder for the event which pits the world’s best performing under 21 players against each other in an eight-man format.
The tournament was created in 2017 to showcase the sport’s up and coming talent, as well as trialling new rules innovations to try and speed up the action.
Until now it has been held in Milan, but an open bidding process is now taking place and, according to well-placed sources, Saudi Arabia is clear favourite to win the rights to host, probably in a deal that will last five years.
With prize money of just over £2 million there will certainly be no issues when it comes to funding. While initially the tournament will be restricted to men, it is believed that a female NextGen event could well be introduced around 2025.
Saudi Arabia city Jeddah is leading the bidding to host the NextGen Finals for young players
Daniil Medvedev is one of the players to have played in Riyadh for the Diriyah Tennis Cup
That will signal the gradual expansion of tennis events in the country, with the process having already started last December. That saw a host of top male players competing for the Diriyah Cup, although it only had exhibition status.
The world’s biggest racket sport is following others to take advantage of its hosts’ deep pockets. In fact there are few sports not starting to establish a presence there, with the potential of a lucrative T20 cricket league emerging in recent weeks.
After the advent of LIV Golf there has been speculation of a tennis equivalent following suit. While tennis’s fractured governance and underwhelming commercial performance makes it ripe for the taking, the creation of venues is more problematic than golf, making such a project more difficult.
At the Madrid Open Cam Norrie was last night hoping to make the last sixteen when he took on China’s Zhizen Zhang. Aryna Sabalenka, the women’s number two seed, ended the run of 15 year-old Russian Mirra Andreeva 6-3 6-1 to make the quarter finals.
