The best tennis players in the United States and Iga Swiatek, who joined them, opposed helping less wealthy players.
The financial problems of tennis players who are not among the elite of their sport are reaching alarming proportions. Many athletes are forced to say goodbye to tennis due to a lack of funds for constant flights and coaching services.
The best tennis players in the world seemed to have found a cool way to support less successful rivals, but the initiative did not meet with support from the American women and the star from Poland.
Do they only think about themselves?
“They live from tournament to tournament”
Tennis is strongly associated with an elite sport, which is played by the rich and successful, and after a few years of playing you can save up for a comfortable old age. This is true, but only for the main stars. Most professional players spend the lion’s share of their prize money on flights, hotels and coaching services. The situation is especially sad in women’s tennis, where incomes are still lower than those of men.
Not all girls manage to earn more than 45 million rubles in prize money by the age of 16, like the Russian starlet Mirra Andreeva. Most tennis players can compete all over the world for a very long time, but still not save up even for a modest apartment. Some athletes have to give private lessons in order to be able to continue performing.
“I will never pay for myself from tournaments where I earn rating points in my life,” Sports.ru quotes Anna Morgina as saying.
A similar situation is observed among the overwhelming number of athletes outside the top hundred who do not have patrons or sponsors. This situation is sometimes taken advantage of by scammers who induce players to fix matches.
— Many players live from tournament to tournament: they earned money on one, and immediately spent it on the next. And when “interesting” offers come in, they push. The tennis player begins to think that if he accepts the offer, he will be able to go to the next tournament. Then he might end up in the top 500 or top 400. The main thing is to stay afloat. I missed the tournament and slipped in the rankings.
A person faces a choice. What should he do? Throw? Who wants to quit because there is no money? You work every day, you’ve given half your life to it, you don’t see your family. Therefore, you decide that you will somehow get out, survive, take risks. This is how it happens,” Match TV quotes the words of a tennis player who participated in match-fixing and wished to remain anonymous.
“Tour becomes incredibly exhausting.”
The constant lack of money, serious prospects, as well as being forced to be away from family puts psychological pressure on female athletes. An initiative group of tennis players from the top 20 rankings came up with a very good way out of this situation.
According to Sports Illustrated editor John Wertheim, the athletes appealed to the WTA management with a demand to provide guaranteed earnings, which would depend on the rating. Players in the first hundred are offered to pay $500 thousand (more than 48 million rubles). For the next 75 tennis players $200 thousand (19.5 million rubles). And for those who take places from 176th to 250th, they want to provide $100 thousand (9.8 million rubles) per season.
“The tour becomes incredibly exhausting and creates physical and mental stress that cannot be sustained in the long term,” Wertheim quotes from a letter from the initiative group.
This measure would have helped a lot of people, but for some reason top American women: Corey Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys did not join the demands. Polish woman Iga Szwiatek does not share the demands either. Each of these athletes has total prize money exceeding $10 million. This alone is enough for a comfortable old age, but they also have solid sponsorship contracts that lesser-known and titled athletes can only dream of.
The demands of top athletes look quite realistic. Tennis has a huge audience, but only a few make a living. The reaction of the WTA leadership is still unknown, as is the reason that prompted the American women to refuse to support the good initiative. In the end, if the players from the second or third hundred have nothing to continue their careers, then the stars will have no one to play with.
