
Spoelstra: No need to penalize Ball any further
Erik Spoelstra supports no further penalties for LaMelo Ball after flagrant foul.

The WTA Tour Finals is set to leave Saudi Arabia after its initial three-year agreement ends in November 2026, despite the event's success and record prize money. The tour plans to return to its traditional markets in Europe and the Americas in the future.
Last November. A concrete bunker under an arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, serving as the office of womenâs tennis chief executive Portia Archer. Inside the arena, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, two of the eight best players in the world, are about to play for the biggest winnerâs check in womenâs sports history at the WTA Tour Finals, the flagship, season-ending event.
Inside the bunker, Archer is looking further into the future. The WTA Tour would be thrilled, she says, to extend its agreement with the Saudi Tennis Federation beyond the original three-year deal, ending in November 2026.
âWeâd actually enjoy being here for even longer than we have been or than we agreed to be here,â Archer says during an interview, expounding on the community events for women and girls in the kingdom, and the education of new fans by legends and luminaries of womenâs tennis.
She has seen the excitement in the eyes of girls picking up rackets and greeting the luminaries of today, who say in news conferences that they are all in on the eventâs hosts, and the record prize money for womenâs sports that they furnish. Attendance has been up 24 percent over the first year.
The event wonât always be in Saudi Arabia, and will return to its core markets in Europe and the Americas eventually, but, Archer says, âboth those things can be true.
âWe can want to stay here a little longer than the three years that weâve committed to, and also be thinking about where we go after we leave.â
Too bad that, as Archer was speaking five months ago, staying a little longer had largely ceased to be an option.
By then, the WTA Tour Finals had outlived its usefulness to Saudi Arabiaâs wider tennis ambitions, two people briefed on its sports ministryâs operations, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said. While there were still some talks to be had with the WTA, which would not close the door on any possibility of extension before those talks, they were not likely to go anywhere.
At the moment, the WTA Tourâs deal with Saudi Arabia appears to be ending at the conclusion of its planned term, though the ultimate outcome has yet to be finalized. The worldâs leader in womenâs sports got the market and the money that it wanted for its most important tournament, as well as some years of stability for a tournament that had been forced into itinerancy.
But Saudi Arabia got what it wanted out of the worldâs best womenâs tennis players, too, and the new market for the WTA Finals came at the price of exposure. The stars of the WTA often played in front of a half-empty arena with a capacity of just 3,500, in front of cameras beaming to potential sponsors and future hosts around the world.
The event had granted Riyadh and the kingdom legitimacy, despite its never having hosted a tour event. It proved one tennis tourâs willingness to accept its widely criticized human-rights record as a price of doing business. The menâs tour is next to stage a top-tier event in the kingdom, which will start as early as 2028.
âWe have an incredible opportunity to bring the WTA Finals, a world-class, premium global event showcasing the best in womenâs tennis, to a new home,â a spokesperson for the WTA said in a statement last week, following an initial report in Bounces that it would be leaving Riyadh after this fallâs edition.
âThis is a historic moment in womenâs sports, and we are having conversations around the globe with potential partners,â the spokesperson said.
âNo decisions have been made yet about a location for the 2027 Finals, but as with all decisions regarding the future of the WTA, we are working closely with players and focused on continuing to build a strong future for womenâs tennis.â
Saudi Arabia had appeared ready to play a major role in that future, until it did not.
In 2024, its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) signed a deal with the WTA to put its name on the womenâs rankings. PIF has a similar deal with the menâs tour, the ATP. The fund also sponsors a maternity and fertility program for womenâs tennis, launched last year.
But just weeks before Archer arrived for last yearâs WTA Tour Finals, PIF and its sports investment company, SURJ, had finalized a deal to host a new ATP Masters 1000 event, the highest-level tournament outside the Grand Slams.
The event is planned for February, starting in just under two yearsâ time. Its scope, and the money involved in securing it, was short of what Saudi officials had wanted to put on and what the ATP wanted to receive. The original proposal was a 96-player, combined menâs and womenâs event as part of a possible $1 billion investment into tennis, but the WTA could not accommodate another 1,000-level tournament without sacrificing an existing one.
So SURJ and the ATP Tour alighted on a 56-player, one-week event, still a significant coup. It will leapfrog the 500-level events held in Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, whose license-holdersâ refusal to budge means the new tournamentâs exact place in the calendar remains fraught.
Hosting the WTA Tour Finals cost Saudi Arabia roughly $25 million a year, including the license fee, prize money and expenses. Recouping that investment with a small, half-full stadium was never likely, and while returns on investments are not a necessary concern for the kingdom, it has become less lavish with its spending on sports in recent years.
The government could save money that had been going to the WTA Tour Finals from its Ministry of Sports, and still strengthen its foothold in the sport, by shifting its focus toward the new menâs tournament through PIFâs sports investment division, SURJ. The new event requires construction of a new tennis complex in a to-be-determined city.
Also, Saudi Arabia had not partnered with the WTA solely for financial reasons. Bringing a top-tier womenâs sports event to the country and having its citizens watch women compete represented an opportunity to varnish its human-rights record, which has been criticized by several organizations regarding its treatment of women.
âMy experience has been very good here the past few years,â Jessica Pegula said in a news conference during last yearâs event.
âNot a lot of complaints.â
Gauff, who said during the first edition that she would consider not returning without seeing political progress,spoke of inspiring a new generation of Saudi girls during the second.
âI donât think this region has had a lot of female representation when it comes to sports and athletes actually playing here,â Gauff said last November. âSo, to have us here be the first to do that, Iâm really looking forward to maybe one day thereâs a Saudi girl playing on tour when, well, I hope Iâm still there.â
After two years of playing in Saudi Arabia and praising its facilities and approach, the WTA and its stars had done what its backers required. Saudi Arabia did not need them anymore.
Last November in Riyadh, that message hung in the air, without being said outright. The city was largely devoid of banners or other signs that the worldâs top female tennis players were in town.
Their matches took place in an arena on a university campus, rather than in a bustling neighborhood with foot traffic. Outside the arena, there were some food stands and activities on a small plaza, but nothing like the sort of street festivals that accompany major sports events. Until the final matches, the arena was often half-full, but the appetite for and attention on those matches was buzzing and appreciated by the players.
And while players spoke highly of the hosts during their appearances at the WTA Tour Finals, during more recent tournaments, they have spelled out their hopes for the future of their flagship event more clearly.
âI feel like it still needs to grow into an event that showcases the pinnacle of our sport,â Pegula said in a news conference at the Charleston Open in late March.
For casual tennis fans, the WTA Tour Finals might feel like an afterthought at the end of a long season, especially given the smaller crowds it draws in comparison to tennisâs other showcase events. But qualifying for the tournament, in which only the top eight singles players and top eight doubles teams of the season compete, is a massive achievement. Players relish the opportunity to test their games against the best of the best.
âItâs the thing that we all dream of playing,â Madison Keys said in a news conference last month. She played two matches in Riyadh last year before withdrawing due to a viral illness.
âItâs the event of the entire year that everyone [on tour] is talking about. I just hope it ends up in a place where tennis fans get to see it and appreciate it, and it gets to be the event it deserves to be.â
Part of that lack of buzz is an issue of marketing, said Pegula, who has qualified for the Finals in each of the past four years, meaning sheâs seen the nomadic event in a few different iterations. There was the flat atmosphere of Fort Worth, Texas in 2022 and a disaster in Cancun, Mexico in 2023 which saw the players rebel against courts they said were dangerous in a hastily constructed temporary stadium.
At the time, a WTA spokesperson said that the tour had worked âon an expedited timeline amid weather challenges to ensure the stadium and court meet our strict performance standards.â
It was that haste and instability, driven first by the Covid-19 pandemic, and then by the abrupt end of a long-term deal with Chinaâs sports authorities after the country refused, in the tourâs view, to substantially investigate the disappearance of tennis player Peng Shuai, which in part led the WTA to alight on the financial security that Saudi Arabia could provide.
It has not provided the engagement that the players want out of the event. Staging the Finals in a place with a built-in tennis fandom makes a big difference in overall atmosphere. The 2021 edition in Guadalajara, Mexico also came together hastily, with the WTA Tour announcing that the event would be moved from Shenzen two months before it started.
But the WTA had some history in Guadalajara thanks to a 125-level tournament that debuted there in 2019, and the lack of lead time for the Finals didnât keep a boisterous crowd from showing up. Players enjoyed loud, engaged fans and an event that felt as much like a celebration as it did a competitive tournament.
âMexico was great in that sense. The people are so passionate,â Paula Badosa, who reached the semifinals in Guadalajara, said during a Charleston Open news conference.
âThe atmosphere was amazing, one of the best ones I remember.
âSo, yeah, I expect the same. Itâs the WTA Finals, the best players in the world. For me, it has to be a crazy event, and hopefully they can do that, I donât know, in the best place possible, if it has to be in Riyadh, Riyadh. If it has to be in U.S., U.S., or if it has to be in Mexico also, Iâm happy. ⊠Itâs very important that it has a big, big crowd, because itâs what the players deserve.â
âObviously, we have all the Slams and stuff like that which are amazing, but I do feel like the ATP Finals seems a little bigger,â Pegula said.
âBecause it is really tough, youâre playing against the best players of that year and to win that is a really big deal. But I think, marketing-wise, it gets a little lost still. I know itâs a long year, itâs hard to keep up, and sometimes at the end of the year, maybe people check out a little as fans. But I think itâs really important that we continue to grow that.â
Big crowds are at the top of the WTA Tourâs priority list as well â for its playersâ and its sponsorship partnersâ sake. As the tour searches for a new home, a host city that can deliver strong attendance, fan engagement and media exposure is of paramount importance. Riyadh is eight hours ahead of the East Coast of the United States, meaning matches often took place in the middle of the night for one of the WTAâs most important markets from a sponsorship standpoint.
One WTA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships in tennis, said cities in the Americas are in contention, while national media in Poland and Czech Republic have reported that Gdansk and Ostrava or Prague, respectively, are interested.
A separate person briefed on the WTAâs plans to relocate the event, speaking anonymously for the same reason, said no decision is likely until this summer.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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The WTA Tour Finals is leaving Saudi Arabia after its three-year agreement ends in November 2026, as the event will return to its core markets in Europe and the Americas.
The WTA Tour Finals in Saudi Arabia featured the biggest winnerâs check in womenâs sports history, highlighting the event's financial success.
Attendance for the WTA Tour Finals in Saudi Arabia has increased by 24 percent during its first year.
After leaving Saudi Arabia, the WTA Tour Finals plans to return to its traditional markets in Europe and the Americas while potentially extending its engagement with the Saudi Tennis Federation until 2026.

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