Saudi unveils Qiddiya’s National Tennis Centre: 30 courts, 33,000 seats

Saudi Arabia has unveiled the National Tennis Centre at Qiddiya City, a 30-court complex planned with 33,000 seats, and it is already under construction. The point is not subtle: Qiddiya wants to become a serious stop for international tennis, while also building the kind of training and community system that turns amateurs into professionals.

The project is located 45km west of Riyadh and is designed by Populous, a globally renowned sports architecture firm. Qiddiya Investment Company says the facility will become the region’s largest tennis complex and will include 30 courts built to ATP, WTA and ITF standards. At the center sits a 15,000-seat Centre Court arena with a retractable roof, positioned for the world’s biggest matches and designed to host major events beyond tennis.

If you work in sports, entertainment, or development, this is a familiar playbook with a high-stakes modern twist: build the physical “permission slip” first, then attract the ecosystem around it. The centre is integrated into Qiddiya City’s landscape with layered green facades woven into the surrounding Tuwaiq Mountains, which matters because tournaments are not only about capacity. They are about experience, repeatability, and how quickly a destination can scale from elite events to consistent year-round programming.

Operationally, Qiddiya Investment Company frames the National Tennis Centre as part of a larger tennis ecosystem. That ecosystem includes elite athlete development, grassroots participation, and year-round community play. The plan calls for a High Performance Training Centre equipped with a state-of-the-art gym, hydrotherapy and physiotherapy suites, athlete recovery facilities, wellness spaces, player lounges, dedicated changing facilities, and an integrated media centre. In plain English: if you want to host top-tier matches and also develop players locally, you cannot treat training as an afterthought.

The broader Qiddiya City context helps explain the capital rationale. The announcement comes as momentum builds across the development, including the recent opening of Six Flags theme park, Aquarabia, the Middle East’s largest water park, and PlayMaker Studios, a purpose-built film production hub. The National Tennis Centre is also pitched as a year-round destination, not a single-event stadium. Alongside competition, the facilities are designed to support concerts, cultural events, esports competitions, and other major gatherings.

This is where regulatory and institutional alignment becomes a second-order driver. The project received support from leading tennis organisations, including ITF CEO Ross Hutchins, ATP CEO Eno Polo, and President of the Saudi Tennis Federation Mohammed Al Sarrah. Hutchins called the National Tennis Centre the kind of transformative investment the ITF has long championed as essential to the sustainable growth of the sport worldwide, emphasizing that quality facilities create pathways for players, empower coaches, and offer opportunities for people who might otherwise never pick up a racket. Polo described it as a remarkable addition to the global tennis landscape and highlighted the tournament and participation opportunities across levels. Al Sarrah said the federation welcomes the centre as an important addition to the Kingdom’s sporting infrastructure and a positive step for tennis growth in Saudi Arabia, with hopes the centre will increase participation, support local talent development, and inspire the next generation.

On the Saudi side, the sports ministry and Olympic bodies are also explicitly tied to the narrative. Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki bin Faisal, Minister of Sport and President of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said the complex reflects the support and attention the sports sector receives from the Kingdom’s leadership. He added that the project has the necessary capabilities to host major tournaments and elite players, built to the highest international specifications and standards, and that it reflects commitment to developing the tennis ecosystem by enhancing infrastructure and programs that support scouting and development of Saudi talent. He linked this to guiding players from the amateur stage to professionalism while contributing to the achievement of Saudi Vision 2030 sports objectives.

Qiddiya’s Managing Director Abdullah Aldawood put a similar emphasis on the “Power of Play,” saying the National Tennis Centre demonstrates that philosophy and is a world-class home for tennis at every level. He described it as a place where the world’s best players can compete, the next generation of Saudi talent can reach its potential, and families and communities across Saudi Arabia can experience the sport. He also said it is for Saudi Arabia, supporting Vision 2030 by driving sports participation and tourism, and it is open to the world.

For executives watching this rollout, the strategic stake is bigger than tennis. Qiddiya City is planned to be three times the size of Paris, with homes, offices, retail, hotels, schools, and hospitals. Future transport infrastructure includes the Qiddiya High-Speed Rail, connecting to King Abdullah Financial District in 17 minutes and to the future King Salman International Airport in 30 minutes. In other words, the tennis centre is a flagship for a broader destination build, and hosting global events plus training facilities can feed tourism, brand credibility, and talent pipelines all at once. The question for peers is whether this kind of infrastructure-led push can replicate elsewhere, or whether Saudi’s specific mix of scale, institutional buy-in, and destination economics will set a new benchmark for how sports venues get used.