Coco Gauff was asked about the WTA Finals potentially moving to Saudi Arabia and gave her verdict on the situation.
Only recently, the ATP moved the Next Gen ATP Finals to Jeddah as a sort of trial to see how the event would go. Saudi Arabia also coveted the WTA, but so far, nothing happened, even though strong rumors suggest the WTA Finals will be moved to the country in the future.
Quite a few players have voiced their opinion about that, including Aryna Sabalenka, who has no issues with playing there. She was part of the exhibition event in December last year, which saw Novak Djokovic play Carlos Alcaraz and herself take on Ons Jabeur.
Those matches secured the full endorsement of all players who participated, and that is a good start for Saudi Arabia. When it comes to Gauff, she supports the move in principle, hoping it can create a positive effect while being against 'the situation there.'
"I feel like if we go there, I feel like we have the opportunity to make change. Hopefully, you know, I know the situation there isn't great. Definitely don't support the situation there, but I hope that if we do decide to go there, I hope that we're able to make change there and improve the quality there and engage in the local communities and make a difference."
Another interesting thing that Gauff mentioned was that the Finals were nearly going there last year, but ultimately, a lack of time to set it up properly prevented it from happening. Based on that, it's safe to assume that it will go there this year.
"I think the WTA, I've noticed probably Cancun, they're trying to take more steps of communicating with the players about certain decisions. And part of the reason why they didn't go to Saudi last year for the Finals was they didn't have time to -- they wanted to make sure the messaging was correct."
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