Abu Dhabi is in talks with the Women’s Tennis Association to host a top-class tennis tournament. Like golf, it wants to add an Abu Dhabi date to an early season ‘desert swing’ involving Dubai and Doha.
After winning the rights to host football’s 2009 and 2010 World Club Cup, the plan is to create a “circle of events between September and March”, according to Mohammad al Mahmood, the general secretary of the Abu Dhabi Sports Council. It already has Formula 1, power boating, golf and the Red Bull air race. Add this to Dubai’s two golf events, tennis, Rugby 7s, marathon and international football friendlies and you have a steady stream of world class sport in the UAE.
Mahmood is sensible is playing to the country’s strengths (great winter weather), but that shouldn’t write off April to August, it risks ghettoizing the UAE as a seven-months-of-the-year kind of place. Qatar has announced plans for a new indoor sports arena, large enough to host football games. Boxing, swimming, snooker (no joke, the game is taking off in China), basketball and athletics can all be stage indoors.
All is not lost. Mahmood says Abu Dhabi is to bid for the 2011 Ice Hockey World Cup.
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