"I have no doubts that I will play over there in the future": Alcaraz believes Saudi Arabia-ATP partnership is inevitible

In light of the recent news of Saudi Arabia possibly buying into tennis, many wondered whether there will be players who would reject playing in the country.

The country has a long history of various kinds of human rights violations and plenty of people have a rather negative view of it. It doesn't really hurt them that much globally because they have endless amounts of money that they're not afraif of spending in various investments, including sports. We've seen the country investing in various sport and obviously that came to tennis as well.

News broke about Saudi Arabia being in talks with the ATP about buying into tennis with the likelihood of multiple events staged there in the future. The Gulf countries being involved in tennis is nothing new so players are pretty much used and some are quite supportive. Those events have the biggest prize money outside of grand slams which the players obviously like.

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Carlos Alcaraz was asked about the move and whether he would play in the country and the Spaniard has no issues with playing in Saudi. He confirmed that he will:

“I think they have the power to have a lot of tournaments. I have never played an official tournament over there, and let’s see how it is going to be in the future. But, well, I have no doubts that I will play over there in the future."

That's obviously a bit different than Andy Murray who rejected any possibility of playing in Saudi Arabia. He's so far been the only big name to do so and he won't be playing tennis for too many years anyways. Perceptually it's a win for the country, having the possible face of tennis playing in your country in the future. Time will tell whether the deal materializes though but it's going to be an offer the ATP can't refuse.

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