Qiddiya Builds a 33,000-Seat Tennis Home Saudi Will Own

Qiddiya Investment Company is building a 30-court National Tennis Centre 45 kilometers west of Riyadh, with a 15,000-seat Centre Court under a retractable roof. Construction is already in the ground at Qiddiya City. The complex is sized for 33,000 spectators and built to ATP, WTA, and ITF standards.

The centre is meant to be Saudi Arabia’s permanent tennis home after years of renting indoor arenas in Riyadh and Jeddah for events that are now leaving.

Thirty Courts Sit 45 Kilometers West of Riyadh

Qiddiya Investment Company unveiled the National Tennis Centre on June 15, 2026, calling it Saudi Arabia’s future home of international tennis. The Public Investment Fund, which owns the Qiddiya giga-project, said construction is well underway at the site in the Tuwaiq Mountains.

The National Tennis Centre is built for champions, grassroots players, and tennis fans.
This is Qiddiya City, where the future is Powered by Play. 🎾

— مدينة القدية | Qiddiya City (@QiddiyaCity) June 15, 2026

Populous is lead architect, lead interior designer, and lead masterplanner. A joint venture of France’s Bouygues Bâtiment International and Saudi contractor Almabani General Contractors is running the design-build work. Of the 30 courts, 28 will be hard and 2 will be clay. Six are indoor. Fourteen are practice courts.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, minister of sport and president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said the complex “has the necessary capabilities to host major tournaments and elite players, having been built according to the highest international specifications and standards.”

HOW THE SEATS BREAK DOWN

The named show courts and the arena add to 30,000 seats. The remaining capacity sits on the outer match courts. High-performance gyms, hydrotherapy and physiotherapy suites, recovery rooms, player lounges, and a media centre sit behind the fences, which is the kit a tour event needs when it stops renting a university hall.

The Events Saudi Rented Are Already Moving Out

Until this campus exists, Saudi tennis has lived in borrowed rooms. The WTA Finals used the King Saud University Indoor Arena in Riyadh in 2024 and 2025. The Next Gen ATP Finals used King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah from 2023 through 2025. Other show matches have gone through ANB Arena. Those deals were leases on indoor boxes. This project is a site the kingdom will hold.

On July 1, 2026, the WTA and the Saudi Tennis Federation mutually agreed on the conclusion of the Riyadh hosting arrangement. The WTA asked to move the 2026 Finals. The federation accepted. The 2026 WTA Finals will be held at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden from November 8 to 15, 2026, cutting a three-year stay short by a season.

The joint statement said the Riyadh Finals delivered 20 percent year-on-year growth in attendance, with sell-outs on the last days, and that related programmes reached more than 30,000 people. Those figures describe the rented event that is leaving, not the Qiddiya campus that is still rising.

The Next Gen ATP Finals followed the same path. After three Jeddah editions, the Saudi Tennis Federation declined another year. The 2026 tournament will be held at PalaCalafiore in Reggio Calabria, Italy, from December 9 to 13, 2026, on a one-year ATP deal with the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation. Andre Silva, the ATP’s chief tour officer, said the short term fits a wider calendar rewrite in 2028, when a Saudi Masters 1000 is due to come online.

THE TENNIS SAUDI HAS ALREADY LET GO

1. October 23, 2025: SURJ Sports Investment, a PIF company, and the ATP announce a new Saudi Masters 1000, to begin as early as 2028.
2. December 17-21, 2025: Jeddah stages its last Next Gen ATP Finals at King Abdullah Sports City.
3. June 15, 2026: Qiddiya Investment Company unveils the National Tennis Centre, with construction already in progress.
4. July 1, 2026: The WTA and the Saudi Tennis Federation end the Riyadh Finals deal; the 2026 Finals go to Indian Wells.
5. December 9-13, 2026: The Next Gen ATP Finals are held in Reggio Calabria.
6. 2028: The Saudi Masters 1000 is due to begin. The public contract still does not name this centre as the venue.

The pattern is not a retreat from tennis. It is a change in what Saudi Arabia is willing to rent. Year-end exhibitions in indoor arenas can move when a contract ends. A 15,000-seat Centre Court poured into Qiddiya City cannot.

Will the 2028 Masters Play at Qiddiya?

On October 23, 2025, SURJ and the ATP announced the first ever expansion of the Masters 1000 category since that tier began in 1990. Saudi Arabia becomes the 10th host, alongside Indian Wells, Miami, Monte-Carlo, Madrid, Rome, Toronto/Montreal, Cincinnati, Shanghai, and Paris. The event is set as a one-week, 56-player outdoor hard-court tournament and will not be mandatory for players. It is due as early as 2028. SURJ said venue and dates would follow later.

That gap still exists. Qiddiya’s own page sells a 15,000-seat Centre Court “dedicated to Grand Slams and majors.” No Grand Slam has been awarded. No ATP circular has named this campus as the Masters 1000 site. The building is the size and spec of that event. The booking is not in the announcement.

The new tournament also becomes a shareholder in ATP Media, the tour’s broadcast arm, which is how a host buys a longer claim on the men’s calendar than a three-year Finals lease ever gave the WTA. PIF already sits on the ATP and WTA as naming partner of the rankings. SURJ is the vehicle that turns that money into an event the fund owns.

At Qiddiya City, we believe in the Power of Play; the idea that play, in all its forms, has the ability to transform lives, build communities and inspire generations. The National Tennis Centre demonstrates this philosophy. We are building a world-class home for tennis at every level, where the world’s best players can compete, the next generation of Saudi talent can reach their potential, and families and communities across Saudi Arabia can experience this great sport. The National Tennis Centre is for Saudi Arabia, supporting Vision 2030 by driving sports participation and tourism, and it is open to the world.

Abdullah Aldawood, Managing Director, Qiddiya Investment Company

Andrea Gaudenzi, ATP chairman, called the Masters deal “a proud moment for us and the result of a journey that’s been years in the making.” Bander Bin Mogren, chairman of SURJ Sports Investment, said bringing a Masters 1000 to Saudi Arabia was a step for tennis in the region and a way to support athletes and fans “for years to come.” Those lines are about the licence. They are not a site plan.

The First New Masters 1000 Since 1990

Adding a 10th Masters 1000 is the first growth of that tier in 35 years. Prize money is meant to sit in line with the other Masters 1000 events. Proceeds from the partnership are earmarked by the ATP for calendar work and a larger Masters bonus pool, which is the tour’s way of paying top players to show up at a new stop that is not mandatory.

Danny Townsend, CEO of SURJ Sports Investment, called the tournament a statement of Saudi Arabia’s role as a sports hub and said SURJ would work with the ATP on a stadium and the kit to run it. That is the sentence that makes Qiddiya’s 15,000-seat bowl more than a pretty render. It is also why the missing venue name still matters. A Masters 1000 in a finished national centre is a different product from a Masters 1000 in another rented hall.

Venue and Dates Remain Unannounced

Qiddiya has not published an opening date. Populous still lists the project year as TBC. Early briefings around the June 2026 reveal said the centre could be ready in 2027 if the build stays on track. That remains an outside estimate, not a Qiddiya timetable. The Masters is dated as early as 2028. The two clocks are close enough to tempt a match. They have not been matched in a signed public notice.

Green Walls Wrap Hard Courts, Not Grass

The renders that travelled with the announcement show a planted bowl, layered green facades, and hard courts in a purple and green mix that reads, at a glance, like the All England Club. The flagship even takes the name Centre Court. Populous, which designed this campus, is the same architecture firm widely credited with Wimbledon’s retractable roof. The homage stops at the surface.

None of the 30 courts will be grass. Twenty-eight will be hard. Two will be clay. The retractable roof on the 15,000-seat court is for heat and dust west of Riyadh, not for a London rain delay. Qiddiya’s design note is the Tuwaiq terrain, not SW19. Shireen Hamdan, global director at Populous and general manager of Populous KSA, said the centre would rank among the finest tennis facilities in the world and that mixing community space with elite courts is unusual for a venue of this type.

Populous describes buildings that emerge from the land rather than sitting on it. Green roofs and planted terraces run across the site, with elevated walkways and folded roof forms. Native plants are meant to shade paths and cut long-term watering in a desert wasi. That is a climate brief. It is also why the planted walls can look, in still images, like a grass theatre dropped onto rock.

The visual echo is real and it is also a trap. A 15,000-seat Centre Court in purple-green hard-court paint will host a different sport from the one Wimbledon sells in June. Players who come here, if the Masters lands, will be playing the same surface they play in Indian Wells and Shanghai, under a roof that can close when the afternoon becomes unusable.

An Arena That Can Sell Tickets Without Tennis

The second roof is the tell. Court 3 is an 8,000-seat arena that Qiddiya says can take concerts, cultural programmes, other sports, and esports. Centre Court is also written up as a room for events beyond tennis. A national tennis centre that needs 33,000 people in seats cannot live on one ATP week. The roofs are how the building earns its keep when the draw is not in town.

Skepticism that this is another paper giga-project misses the one fact Qiddiya has already put in the ground: work is underway, not a teaser film. The harder question is fill. A new city 45 kilometers from Riyadh has to pull people for practice days, junior events, and Tuesday nights. The 8,000-seat room is the answer the architects drew for that problem.

WHAT THE ROOFS CAN HOST

• Concerts and culture: Both retractable roofs are specified for music and cultural programmes when tennis is not using the floor.
• Other sports and esports: The 8,000-seat arena is listed for sport beyond tennis, including esports, so the room can sell tickets in any month.
• Community courts: Fourteen practice courts and public space are meant to stay open for local play when the show courts are dark.
• Next-door golf: An 18-hole championship course designed by Sir Nick Faldo sits beside the tennis campus.
• The rest of Qiddiya City: Six Flags Qiddiya City, Aquarabia (the Middle East’s largest water park), and PlayMaker Studios were already open when the tennis centre was announced.

PIF’s June 23, 2026 newswire tied the tennis campus to that same cluster. The tennis centre is one more gate in a city sold as entertainment, sport, and culture, not a standalone club on a ring road. If the Masters week fills the 15,000-seat bowl, the theme parks and the golf course give visiting players and fans somewhere to go on the off day. If it does not, the 8,000-seat arena still has a floor that can be staged for a show.

PIF Is Buying a Men’s Calendar Slot It Can Keep

The second-order move is ownership. PIF and SURJ already pay to put the fund’s name on the rankings. They paid to bring the WTA Finals and the Next Gen ATP Finals into halls the kingdom did not design for tennis. Those events can leave, and two of them have. A 30-court national centre, specced for ATP, WTA, and ITF play, is harder to pack up. The Masters 1000 licence is the event that licence is meant to feed.

Women’s tennis is the open flank. The WTA Finals are gone for 2026. The Masters 1000 SURJ bought is a men’s event; WTA players are not part of that draw. Qiddiya still says the courts meet WTA standards, which keeps a future women’s week possible. Nothing in the June 2026 package books one.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The build: Thirty courts (28 hard, 2 clay), a 15,000-seat Centre Court, an 8,000-seat arena, and 33,000 seats in total, with construction underway as of June 2026.
• The licence: Saudi Arabia holds a new ATP Masters 1000 from as early as 2028, the first added to that tier since 1990.
• The exits: The 2026 WTA Finals will be in Indian Wells, and the 2026 Next Gen ATP Finals will be in Reggio Calabria.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Opening day: Qiddiya has not set a public completion date, and Populous still marks the year as TBC.
• The Masters site: No public ATP or SURJ notice names the National Tennis Centre as the 2028 venue.
• The week: Tournament dates have not been issued; SURJ said they would come in due course.

Aldawood’s brief is participation and tourism. The seating chart is built for a sold Masters night and for concerts when tennis cannot fill the room. Until Qiddiya names an opening and SURJ names a court, the campus is a 33,000-seat argument in concrete: Saudi Arabia would rather own the house than rent the hall.