Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
The WTA Finals, the elite season-ending event in women’s tennis, will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the next three years in a move that organisers hope will create “the Super Bowl for women’s sports.”
The tournament will be played at the Spectrum Center, home of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, with the Women’s Tennis Association believing its showpiece can move tennis to the centre of the sporting firmament.
The year’s top-eight singles players and doubles teams qualify for the event, which is usually held in November.
“Our ambition is for the WTA Finals to be not only the premier championship in women’s tennis, but one of the defining global events in women sports,” WTA chair Valerie Camillo said.
“We want to create the Super Bowl for women’s sports. And not just the competition, but an event that is the annual gathering for women’s tennis, women’s sports, and women’s sport business.
“Audiences are growing, investment is growing, female athletes are increasingly at the center of sports and culture around the world. And women’s tennis has helped lead and define that progress for more than 50 years. And we believe our biggest championship should reflect the scale of this moment,” Camillo added.
Camillo called it a “minimum three-year deal” and added: “We’ll see what goes on beyond that.”
The announcement comes at a time of financial difficulty for the WTA after it announced in July it was opting out of the final year of a three-year hosting arrangement with Saudi Arabia to move this year’s finals to Indian Wells, California.
There were also concerns about going back to Saudi Arabia due to military conflicts in the Middle East.
New US Open champ Elena Rybakina collected $5.23 million for winning last year’s finals in Riyadh.
