Four cities picked as candidates for 2014 WTA Championships

ISTANBUL, TURKEY – OCTOBER 28: Serena Williams of USA talks to the media after her match against Maria Sharapova of Russia in the final during day six of the season ending TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships Tennis at the Sinan Erdem Dome on October 28, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey.

St. Petersburg, Oct 29 – The Russian city of Kazan has joined Mexico City, Singapore and China’s Tianjin as candidates to host the 2014 season-ending Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Championships.

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.

“We were delighted with the 43 Expressions of Interest we received and in finalising our candidate cities, we believe we have an outstanding shortlist.”

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.