WTA co-founder Billie Jean King has called on tennis’ governing bodies to work closer together to address scheduling concerns.
King, who won 39 Grand Slam titles in singles and doubles during her career, has made the comments ahead of two key events that will take place. The WTA Finals will be held in Cancun, Mexico and will feature the eight highest-ranked players on the women’s Tour. Then in the following week, the Billie Jean King Cup Finals (formerly known as the Federation Cup) will get underway in Seville, Spain.
The close proximity of the two tournaments has resulted in high-profile names such as Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff deciding to not play in the team competition. Despite announcing a date for the WTA Finals in June, it wasn’t until three months later that the WTA confirmed where it will be held. Making it the second year in a row that organizers have waited until the latter part of the season to finalize details for their season-ending championships.
“We all need to get together and figure out a better calendar for the players and everybody knowing what’s going to happen, because you can’t start making these decisions, like on the (WTA) Finals, in October or … September,” The Associated Press quoted King as saying earlier this week. “They have to know ahead of time. It’s only fair.”
In recent weeks there has been mass speculation over the WTA Finals and its venue with Saudi Arabia and America previously expressing interest. In September sources told Ubitennis that a multi-year deal for Saudi Arabia to hold the event from 2024 onwards is in the pipeworks. It has been speculated that this deal could be announced during this year’s tournament but this is yet to be confirmed.
Conchita Martinez is the tournament director of this year’s Billie Jean King Cup finals. The former Wimbledon champion has backed up King’s calls for there to be greater clarity when it comes to the Tour calendar.
“We need to work together for better solutions.” Said Martinez.
As for the future, King says she is open to the idea of the women’s team event that is named after being combined with the men’s Davis Cup. Both tournaments are run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) but there has been no official talk about such a merger taking place in the future. Also finding such a venue that could hold both the men’s and women’s team finale simultaneously would pose a stern challenge for organisers.
“You know how I am about having the men and women work together,” she said.
The WTA Finals will take place between 29th October – November 5th followed by the BJK Cup Finals between 7-12 November. The two venues are almost 8000 KM apart from each other and there is a seven-hour time difference.
