The star-studded Six Kings Slam tennis tournament, due to take place in Saudi Arabia this month, has been postponed after the recent attacks on the country’s capital Riyadh while the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) governing body is considering delaying the Asian Cup national team tournament until 2028.
The third edition of Six Kings Slam, a big-money exhibition event featuring the top six ATP men’s tennis players, was due to be held in Riyadh from October 21 to 24 but has been pushed back to December 27–30.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz, Alex de Minaur, and Learner Tien were set to take part in the event.
The decision was made after Yemen's Houthi movement launched deadly attacks on Saudi Arabia last weekend, which included a missile strike on Riyadh's international airport that killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 300.
In a statement, Riyadh Season, the organisers of Six Kings Slam, said: “The decision reflects Riyadh Season's commitment to delivering sporting events to the highest standards, following an assessment of the organizational and logistical challenges associated with hosting the tournament and their potential impact on the quality of the audience experience.”
The conflict could also have an impact on the 2027 Asian Cup, which is due to be staged in the Kingdom between January 7 and February 7.
Saudi Arabia will be staging the continental tournament for the first time and is a key test ahead of its hosting of the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
The 24-team tournament is due to take place across eight venues in three cities – Riyadh, Jeddah, and Al-Khobar.
AFC president Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa said the organization is in “no hurry to make a decision” on whether to postpone the tournament or not.
He added: “We can wait until the end of November. Things can change very quickly for better or worse in the region and it is a question of seeing what happens.
“If we need to make a decision then we will, but we could move back a year to 2028 if we need to. But at the moment we are monitoring the situation and everything is on schedule.”
The previous Asian Cup was delayed by a year after China withdrew as hosts because of COVID-19 restrictions, with Qatar stepping in to stage the tournament in early 2024.
The attacks have threatened to disrupt sport in the kingdom, with golf's Asian Tour also saying it is monitoring the security situation ahead of its season-ending Saudi International in Riyadh next month.
Three fixtures in domestic soccer’s top-flight Saudi Pro League were postponed on Tuesday.
The fixture between Al-Riyadh and Al-Hilal, along with Al-Ittihad against Al-Shabab in Jeddah, have been pushed back until December. Al-Nassr's trip to Al-Ahli, also based in Jeddah, has been moved to March.
The league cited “logistical considerations” for rescheduling the matches.
Meanwhile, world soccer’s governing body FIFA and the Saudi Esports Federation have also postponed the FIFAe Finals 2026 tournament scheduled to take place in Jeddah from October 16 to 25.
This came after Japan and Brazil withdrew their esports teams on Saturday after assessing the situation in the host country.
Other future sporting events could be affected by the regional conflict, including Formula 1 (F1) races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
F1 had already cancelled the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix earlier in the year due to the Iran war.
