It remains to be seen how attendance will perform over the next six days, which includes a Monday final; on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, two separate ticket sessions will be sold, which seems ambitious at the moment.
One thing is certain, though: you cannot blame the location. Dickies Arena is one of the best modern sports venues I’ve seen in the U.S., and I’ve been to plenty. Opened in 2019, it’s a sparkling shrine to Fort Worth—the 12th largest city in the country—and things it holds dear: rodeo, Texas Christian University, the local community (it was gifted to the city and is managed by a nonprofit) and a flexibility to host other attractions, including the WTA Finals.
Matt Homan, general manager of Dickies Arena, told me in a phone interview last week that the possibility of bringing in the WTA Finals started percolating in the summer, and accelerated quickly from there.
“We started getting very excited about the opportunity to be to host world-class tennis in our world-class facility,” says Homan. “Dickies Arena has a reputation for hosting national and international sporting events, and we’ve done it on a short-term basis as well. This city’s been used to putting big events together, and it’s a major market.”