AN ELUSIVE DREAM FOR MOST
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROFESSIONAL TENNIS RICHES ARE LIMITED
Qualifying for the U. S. Open tennis championships begins Tuesday and there will be seven Canadians vying for a chance to join Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard in the main draw.
The men’s and women’s singles winners will each collect $ 3.7 million, while first-round losers will receive $50,000 just for showing up.
The players in the main draw represent the sport’s one per cent. The reality is the various stages of the professional tennis tour are largely populated by paupers.
To put their plight in perspective, the 700th-best hockey player in the world is skating in the NHL with a guaranteed salary of $ 650,000. The 700th-best men’s tennis player is unable to pay his bills. In 2016, only 67 players on the ATP Tour earned more than $650,000.
Each year, parents spend tens of thousands of dollars on tennis academies, coaching, equipment and travel to tournaments. They dream of watching their offspring at Wimbledon or Roland Garros. The overwhelming majority end up disappointed.
“You have to be realistic,” said one tennis parent. “When we realized our son wasn’t going to make it, we focused on university and he got a good education. If he had won the NCAA championships, we might have reconsidered and given the tour a shot.”
There are 15 Canadians who played at least 20 professional tournaments, but only a handful of them cover their expenses. Raonic is at the top of the food chain with $1.32 million (he earned $5.5 million last year) and there’s a sharp drop- off to Denis Shapovalov ($ 352,159 after picking up $ 220,000 at the Rogers Cup), Vasek Pospisil ($ 262,980) and Peter Polansky ($162,623). If you add up all the winnings for the 13 Canadian men behind Raonic and Shapovalov, it totals less than $550,000.
Shapovalov is being touted as a future star. He has a Wimbledon junior title on his resume and has won titles at the Challenger level — the tennis equivalent of the American Hockey League. At 18, he’s the youngest player to reach the semifinals of an ATP Masters 1000 event and his heroics at the Rogers Cup moved him in to the top 100. That’s the magic number that offers a spot in the main draw of Grand Slam tournaments with guaranteed paydays in the $30,000 to $50,000 range for first-round losers.
Felix Auger- Aliassime is also regarded as a top prospect and this year he became one of only eight players to win a Challenger event at the age of 16. He was awarded a wild card for the Rogers Cup, but was forced to withdraw because of a wrist injury. He’s hoping to salvage his summer with a good showing at U. S. Open qualifying.
Early success is no guarantee of future stardom.
Filip Peliwo was the No. 1 junior in the world in 2012, the same year Eugenie Bouchard was the No. 1 junior on the women’s side. Peliwo won the Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior titles, but he has been unable to progress past the entry Futures level as a pro. He has won six Futures tournaments this year, but has struggled in Challengers. He’s close to covering his expenses and has averaged more than $40,000 a year in prize money.
Philip Bester was a French Open junior finalist and was on Canada’s Davis Cup team at age 17. Bester, who spent four years at Nick Bollettieri’s tennis factory in Florida, announced his retirement last month after more than 10 years of mixed results. Bester saw a lot of the world, but it was an expensive journey. His official earnings to- talled $ 272,000 or less than $25,000 a year. When he announced his retirement last week after losing in the first round of the Granby Challenger, the 29- year- old had earned a shade over $14,000 this year. A hand injury derailed his career when he was playing some of his best tennis and he was never ranked higher than No. 225.
Brayden Schnur was ranked No. 44 in the ITF junior rankings when Peliwo topped the charts in 2012 and he hedged his bets by accepting a tennis scholarship to North Carolina. After three successful seasons of college tennis, he turned pro and he has earned more than $100,000 in his first full year on the pro tour.
“I needed college to get stronger and be more mature,” Schnur said after a semifinal run at Granby last month moved him into the top 200. “I have a year and a half to go at school and North Carolina has guaranteed my scholarship, but for the time being, I’m going to see how far I go with my tennis.”
Schnur, Peliwo and AugerAliassime are among the fortunate who were selected for the program at the national training centre in Montreal, largely subsidized by the profits from the Rogers Cup. But there are many more young athletes whose parents are making investments with no hope of a return.