The ATP announced on Thursday the creation of a new Masters 1000 event which will take place annually in Saudi Arabia from as early as 2028.
The new event will be played on hard courts and take place “at the start of the season” in a city yet to be determined, and will last “one week”, ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said at a press conference in Paris.
The long-expected move marks the first ever expansion of the top-tier category of men’s tennis since its creation in 1990.
The Saudi tournament will join the nine existing Masters events, which take place in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid, Rome, Toronto/Montreal, Cincinnati, Shanghai and Paris.
Gaudenzi called the expansion to 10 events “a proud moment for us and the result of a journey that’s been years in the making”.
The addition of another tournament to the tennis calendar comes at the end of a season marked by complaints from some players about the demanding pace of the tour, whose tournaments run from January to November.
However, unlike the majority of its counterparts, the new Saudi tournament will not be a mandatory event.
“Our open system has a lot of pros because it provides a lot of freedom, options and choices for the players” in choosing which tournaments they want to compete in, said Gaudenzi.
“But the downside is that they obviously can’t play Slams, Masters, (ATP) 500s, 250s freely. On top of the fact that they also play team events and exhibitions like the Six Kings Slam,” he added.
The Six Kings Slam last week in Saudi Arabia attracted stars from the men’s game, including world number one Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic.
– ‘It ticks all the boxes’ –
In a statement published on Thursday, the ATP said that the new Masters tournament would be launched as part of a deal with SURJ Sports Investments — a company with links to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The amount invested by SURJ to secure the organisation of the event has not been disclosed.
Saudi Arabia has increased its presence in world sport — particularly tennis — in recent years and has hosted the WTA Finals in Riyadh since 2024.
“Tennis is one of the sports that we think will grow massively,” said a Saudi source close to the deal.
“There is already a lot of infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, (tennis) has a great access to the young generation… It ticks all the boxes in terms of the thinking of PIF.”
The PIF has also attached its name to the ATP rankings and formed partnerships with several existing Masters 1000 tournaments such as Indian Wells, Miami and Madrid.
The Next Gen ATP Finals, which bring together the eight best players aged 20-and-under at the end of every season, have been held in the kingdom since 2023.
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