Tournament director Garbine Muguruza shares her goal for WTA Finals in

Garbine Muguruza rated the WTA Finals extremely highly as a player and now her goal is to do everything she can to make the season-ending tournament in Saudi Arabia a successful project. 

In early April, the WTA confirmed what many thought was just a matter of time – Riyadh was named as the host city for the WTA Finals for the next three years. 

Around two weeks later, Muguruza announced that she was retiring from pro tennis after not playing any matches since 2023 January. Two months later, the former three-time Grand Slam champion was picked to be the boss for the inaugural edition of the season-ending event in Saudi Arabia. 

In mid-October, Riyadh hosted some of the biggest names of the game after Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune came for the Six Kings Slam. During a four-day exhibition, the stadium was packed and everything went extremely well. 

Now, Riyadh is set to host the WTA Finals between November 02-09 with the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina, Jessica Pegula, Jasmine Paolini and Barbora Krejcikova participating.

When it was confirmed that the Saudis were given the green light to host one of the biggest tournaments in the world, the WTA faced certain criticism and backlash. But the organization has defended their decision by claiming that they have been given guarantees and star players are also willing to give a chance to Saudi Arabia. 

And since Muguruza is the tournament director in Riyadh, she will also have lots of responsibility on her back but she is also looking forward to the challenge.

“It shows there’s a lot of interest in tennis in the Kingdom. It was an exhibition, but ours is an official tournament. I’m really looking forward to it. We want to make it great so when they come back next year, they’ll be really excited,” the former world No. 1 told the WTA website.

Muguruza…