Saudi money could be headed to tennis next. Is it about sportswashing, women’s rights or both?

By HOWARD FENDRICH
AP Tennis Writer

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Tennis appears set to follow the path of golf and other sports by doing business with Saudi Arabia and its $650 billion sovereign wealth fund. There are some in tennis, such as Billie Jean King, who hope that sort of collaboration might have a transformative effect in a kingdom where rights groups say women continue to face discrimination in most aspects of family life and homosexuality is a major taboo. Whether engagement will work or this whole phenomenon is an example of “sportswashing,” whereby countries use fields of play to change their public image, what seems quite clear is that tennis is, indeed, going to be next to do business with the country.