Saudi offer to merge men’s and women’s tours is apparently time-sensitive, with a 90-day expiration period if it is not accepted
Saudi Arabia has made its move for tennis, Telegraph Sport can reveal, with a $2 billion take-it-or-leave-it offer to merge the men’s and women’s tours.
Sources say that after the Premium Tour discussions in Indian Wells last Saturday, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi asked the Masters tournaments to stay behind once the four grand slams had left the room. Gaudenzi then briefed them on an offer from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). The deal is said to be time-sensitive, with a 90-day expiration period if it is not accepted. As things stand, the four grand slams would not be part of this PIF offer.
The biggest upside for PIF would be a Masters 1000 tournament in the first week of the season – which was what the Saudis have wanted all along – and is something Gaudenzi has been pushing for since last summer. However, this idea was strongly opposed by Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley, who has established the United Cup team event in the same slot in the calendar. The resulting animosity between Tiley and Gaudenzi started the slams down the road to their so-called Premium Tour model last year.
It now seems all the more significant that Gaudenzi did not attend January’s Australian Open along with all the other tennis stakeholders, but instead travelled to Riyadh to negotiate with PIF. A small sponsorship deal was announced last month, putting PIF branding on the ATP rankings, but that was clearly only a starting point.
This development has the potential to cause further tension between the two tours and the four slams, especially as United States Tennis Association chief revenue officer Lew Sherr insisted the ATP and WTA chairmen should be invited to Saturday’s Premium Tour meetings as a point of courtesy.
Now it emerges that Gaudenzi had his own unifying model up his sleeve, in which he would ascend to become a tennis commissioner for the two tours.
The ATP had already put their annual tournament meetings back from Miami next week to Madrid in early May, which is where the decision on the PIF offer is likely to be taken.