WTA Finals 2024: How did the event in Saudi Arabia go – and what do the gamers assume?

Homosexuality is prohibited in Saudi Arabia, and Amnesty Worldwide cited “arrests of girls’s rights activists, suppression of freedom of expression and widespread use of the demise penalty”.

BBC Sport requested all eight particular person gamers the identical query: “Have you ever personally had any doubts or issues about coming right here given the human rights report, notably ladies’s rights and the LGBTQ+ group?”

The responses have been blended, though there was a way that the gamers felt free to talk with out worry of penalties. Many stated they hoped they might assist result in change.

A variety of reported calls passed off between the gamers and the WTA, with Jessica Pegula – a member of the WTA gamers’ council – saying there was “a variety of backwards and forwards”.

Zheng Qinwen, Elena Rybakina and Jasmine Paolini all urged that showcasing high-level ladies’s sports activities can be an excellent instance inside Saudi Arabia.

Swiatek stated he was attempting to “watch and learn the way every thing works”, whereas Sabalenka stated: “I noticed every thing right here may be very chilly.

“Me personally, I’ve no issues enjoying right here. I believe it is rather vital to carry tennis to the entire world and market it. [the] the brand new era.”

Gauff’s reply drew on his circle of relatives’s expertise of racial segregation in the USA.

“Figuring out from a very long time in the past about my grandmother, merging her college, folks is not going to prefer it, however in the long term I believe it is going to be higher for everybody,” she stated.

However the 20-year-old added: “If I felt uncomfortable or felt like nothing was taking place, I most likely would not come again.”