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Dubai: There are exciting times in store for the Middle East and Asia region on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.
Starting this year, the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships will be held in Doha. The year-end event was finalised following a $42 million (Dh155 million) agreement with the Qatari capital promising a new stadium to host the tournament until 2010.
"We hope this will help spark growth of the game here. The Asian Games in Doha in 2006 were well organised and we thought these championships would be an ideal platform for a further push for tennis," said Larry Scott, CEO for the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.
Biggest event in region
The championships in Qatar will be the biggest tennis event ever held in the Middle East with the WTA Tour's top eight singles players and top four doubles teams competing for $4.45 million (Dh17 million) in prize money. Current world No 1 Justine Henin will be aiming for her third straight title, having won both editions held in Madrid in 2006 and 2007.
Doha has been a regular stop on the women's tour since 2001, when it first hosted a Tier III event. The tournament was upgraded to a Tier II status in 2004 and from this year, raised to a Tier I tournament for the first time with prize money totalling $2.5 million (Dh9 million).
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