Four Bidders Announced for WTA Championships

Four cities have been confirmed as the frontrunners to host the 2014 season-ending Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Championships

The Russian city of Kazan has joined Mexico City, Singapore and China’s Tianjin are candidates.

The tournament brings the top eight women’s singles players together for a broadly televised tournament that has seen tennis brought to non-traditional settings such as Qatar and this year’s host Istanbul.

The winning city will be announced in the spring.

A further 39 cities expressed interest, according to WTA chairman Stacey Allister.

The WTA Championships is today recognised as one of a handful of truly blue chip international events, currently delivering over $140 million of economic and media value to the host city, she said on the WTA website.

Kazan has never hosted a WTA tournament but hosts a men’s ATP Challenger event while Russia’s men’s national team has played Davis Cup matches there.

This year’s WTA championships was won by Serena Williams, who beat Russia’s Maria Sharapova in the final. The doubles title went to the Russian duo of Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova.