Saudi Arabia broadened its inroads into professional tennis with an announcement Thursday that four of the world’s top players, including Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, will play exhibition matches in Riyadh in December.

While the country is still short of hosting significant tournaments on the men’s and women’s tours, landing the two biggest names in the sport — and its most high-profile rivalry right now — is a significant get for a kingdom known for using sports to burnish its public image. Alcaraz and Djokovic will face each other on Dec. 27 as part of Riyadh Season, a giant festival organized by the country’s General Entertainment Authority.

Before Djokovic and Alcaraz play, the top-ranked women’s player Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus will play Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, the most successful female player of African and Arab descent in the sport’s history.

Becoming a part of the global sports infrastructure — and tennis specifically — has become a top priority for Saudi Arabia.  Last year, the kingdom debuted its own men’s golf tour, paying top players hundreds of millions of dollars to play in its tournaments rather than those that were part of the traditional PGA Tour. The maneuvering led to a pending deal with the PGA that gives the kingdom’s investment arm a significant stake in the sport’s top tour.

The country’s efforts have generated a massive backlash from critics who accused the Saudi royal family of using sports to distract the international community from its repressive rule, especially after the 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist.

In a matter of months Djokovic, the No. 1 men’s player, and Alcaraz, who is No. 2, have developed into one of the most electrifying rivalries in sports. They played for the first time in a Grand Slam tournament at the French Open in Paris in June, where Alcaraz was overcome by the stress of the moment and suffered cramps throughout his body through the final two sets of Djokovic’s four-set win. But the next month Alcaraz prevailed in an epic five-set duel at Wimbledon.

Djokovic owned the later summer though, beating Alcaraz in the longest three-set match in an ATP final in 33 years, a sweat soaked win that lasted 3 hours, 49 minutes at the Western & Southern Open near Cincinnati. The two appeared destined to meet in the U.S. Open final but Alcaraz lost in the semifinals to Daniil Medvedev and Djokovic took the title that Alcaraz had won last year.

Alcaraz told the ATP earlier this month that he thinks about Djokovic every day in practice and is trying to learn from him and match the Serb’s ability to focus in game after game, and tournament after tournament, after so many years. Since the match in Saudi Arabia will be an exhibition, it will likely lack the tension of a match on a grander stage. But both players will be preparing for and trying to gain an edge in the Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam coming in January, where they will be favored once more to meet in the final.

Saudi Arabia, which has hosted exhibitions featuring top tennis players before, has taken a less aggressive approach to tennis than it did with golf.

Earlier this year the country secured the rights to host the ATP’s Next Gen Finals, which features the best players age 21 and under. That event is set to take place in Jeddah in December. In addition, the country was among the top bidders for a long-term deal to host the WTA Finals, one of the premier events on the women’s tour, according to two people with knowledge of the bids.

Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA Tour, visited the country earlier this year. In June, Billie Jean King, a founder of the WTA Tour, said she did not have a problem with taking the event to Saudi Arabia.

Ultimately WTA officials decided they were not ready to bring the event to a country that only in recent years has begun allowing women to drive and where LGBTQ+ people and outspoken allies face discrimination. Some players on the tour are openly gay, including Daria Kasatkina of Russia, who qualified for the event last year. The tour signed a one-year deal to stage the event in Cancun, Mexico.

Through a representative, Jabeur declined to comment on the announcement. Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam champion from Serbia, had previously said he welcomed Saudi Arabia’s investment in the sport, and Alcaraz, the Spaniard, had said he would not have any issue with playing there. A representative for Sabalenka did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Photo: Robert Deutsch / USA Today)