By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday, October 21, 2024
"By coming here, you help the country," Rafael Nadal said responding to critics who called him a "sell out" for becoming Saudi Tennis ambassador.
Photo credit: Saudi Tennis Federation
Rafael Nadal delivered devastating spin in reaching world No. 1.
Responding to controversy over his partnership with Saudi Arabia, Nadal said he’s not spinning the subject.
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Sportswashing exists, the 38-year-old Spanish superstar said, but Nadal asserts tennis’ deepening partnership with Saudi Arabia can help promote progress in the nation while infusing the sport with more prize money and resources.
Last January, Nadal was named new ambassador for the Saudi Tennis Federation sparking criticism from some who slammed it as a "sell out" by tennis' ultimate sportsman.
The WTA signed a three-year multi-million dollar deal with the Saudi Tennis Federation to host the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The 2024 season-ending WTA Finals will be staged in Riyadh November 2-9, featuring the Top 8 singles players and doubles teams in the Race to the WTA Finals.
The move to Riyadh is a lucrative and controversial one.
It means two-season ending tournaments—the WTA Finals and NextGen ATP Finals staged in Jeddah—will be staged on Saudi soil this fall.
Skeptics charge tennis is flirting with a fault line taking money from Saudi Arabia given the Kingdom’s record on human rights violations and the fact same sex activity for both men and women is illegal in Saudi Arabia.
Why would tennis, a sport that prides itself on equality and integrity, sell out foundational values to partner with a regime that represses women and criminalizes same-sex relationships, critics ask?
Detractors say Saudi Arabia’s investment in tennis is a blatant case of sportswashing. They say the Kingdom is using its immense wealth to try to rehabilitate its reputation from a human rights house of horrors to respectable nation that can host tennis’ crown jewel event—as well as the Six Kings Slam that paid winner Jannik Sinner a more lucrative champion’s check than he earned for winning the US Open or Australian Open.
In a new interview with AS.com writer Nacho Albarrán after his loss to rival Novak Djokovic in the lucrative Six Kings Slam exhibition in Riyadh, Nadal said he understands the criticism, but believes ignoring inequity in Saudi Arabia will do nothing to improve it.
The two-time Olympic gold-medal champion told AS.com while his partnership with Saudi Arabia is certainly profitable, he believes tennis players can “help the country” and promote progress through their presence in the Kingdom.
Engaging with Saudi Arabia is a more effective way to encourage change, Nadal said.
“I respect all opinions, as long as mine are also respected," Nadal told AS.com. "Do I get paid to come here? Yes. But we must not lose perspective. Are you coming here and what do you think?
“What do you do good or what do you do bad? Because the only problem in the end is that you charge for it. Because, really, by coming here, you help the country. And those who speak in such a drastic way against the country, very well. So what do you want? That they continue to be bad, that they continue to have the country locked up, with more inequality?”
The PGA Tour announced its plan to merge with Saudi-sponsored LIV Golf in the summer of 2023. It was the latest sports venture the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, has tapped in moves critics—including Hall of Famers Martina Navratilova, Chrissie Evert and John McEnroe—call "sport washing"—an attempt to obscure Saudi Arabia's human rights violations and connection to the 9/11 terrorist attacks with high profile sporting investments.
The 14-time Roland Garros champion Nadal said sportswashing is a component of tennis' partnership with the Saudis, but suggests it's the price of progress. Critics counter: it's not about the power of progress, it's about the power of money.
Echoing Billie Jean King’s famed mantra “you have to see it, to be it,” Nadal argues when Saudi citizens watch tennis they “see another world, other cultures and they have the ability to really move forward.”
Tennis can help promote that progress and Nadal said he’s certain tennis will “do good for the country.”
"In the end, we, coming here, make there are events and tourists come, something that did not happen four or five years ago," Nadal told AS.com. "Let's not fool ourselves, people call it sportwashing and of course it has a part of that, but the other part is that really thanks to all that the people who have been locked up in this country and have not been able to see a different world, thanks to all the tourists who are coming, to all the events that are being held here throughout the year.
“They see another world, other cultures, and they have the ability to really move forward. So, I don't have the slightest doubt that the people who come to do events here, from any field, do good for the country."
Promoting the game’s growth in Saudi Arabia is both a professional and personal mission for Nadal.
In his new role as Saudi Tennis Federation ambassador, Nadal is "part of a long-term commitment to help the sport grow and inspire a new generation of athletes in Saudi Arabia," the Federation said in a statement.
Nadal has visited Saudi Arabia with plans for a Rafa Nadal Academy in the works for the Kingdom.
The Saudi Tennis Federation said the nation currently hosts 177 tennis clubs, which marks a near 150 percent increase in clubs compared to 2019.
The king of clay said he’s excited to be part of the Saudi tennis growth and in an interview last February vowed if he doesn't see meaningful change in Saudi Arabia over the next decade "I will say that I have been completely wrong."
"I don't think Saudi Arabia needs me to clean up its image," Nadal told Ana Pastor on Spanish television's El Objetivo earlier this year. “It is a country that has opened up to the world, a country with great potential.
"It is logical that the world goes there and the feeling is that everything is bought with money.
"And now [some say] Rafa has also sold out for money. I do understand it [that people think about it.]"