NEW YORK (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s move into tennis will now include a multiyear deal to sponsor the WTA women’s rankings. The WTA released word of its partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) on Monday, a move that follows last month’s news that the kingdom will host the tour’s season-ending championships in Riyadh starting this year and February’s announcement that it will sponsor the ATP men’s rankings. Both tours’ rankings deals are for five years. The PIF is the first naming-rights partner for the WTA rankings and the new arrangement also includes plans to promote tennis at lower levels of the sport. Tennis has been consumed lately by the debate over whether the sport should follow golf and others in making deals with Saudi Arabia, where rights groups say women continue to face discrimination in most aspects of family life and homosexuality is a major taboo, as it is in much of the rest of the Middle East. |
WNBA will pay for flights for playoffs and backChicago White Sox activate slugger Eloy Jiménez from the 10'Goal' Palmer scores four in 6China expects over 750 mln interBudimir misses unforgettable lastDecades after a US butterfly species vanished, a close relative is released to fill gapCaitlin Clark selected with No. 1 in the WNBA draft by the Indiana FeverVertex Pharma scientist talks about the long road to developing nonAsbestos victim's dying words aired in wrongful death case against Buffet's railroadMarlins' Jake Burger placed on injured list with left intercostal muscle strain