Pros facing uncertain future
New Zealand’s top tennis players face an uncertain few months as they eat into their savings.
While most professional sportsmen and women can still rely on getting their salaries while the world shuts down because of the coronavirus pandemic, for tennis players if they don’t play, they don’t get paid.
That’s not going to be a concern for the likes of Roger Federer or Serena Williams, but New Zealand players, who earn considerably less, are looking at having to pick up part-time jobs to make ends meet.
There are a bunch of players currently training at the ASB Tennis Arena in Auckland, including Marcus Daniell, Rubin Statham and Ajeet Rai, while Ben McLaughlin, who plays for Japan, and the New Zealand-raised Cameron Norrie are also with them and Michael Venus has returned to the country.
Artem Sitak is training in San Diego and Erin Routliffe is in Canada, but unable to train.
‘‘For us, it’s just waiting, trying to get the body right and fix all of the niggles,’’ Daniell said.
The ITF, WTA and ATP have announced there will be no tennis tournaments played around the world until June 7 at the earliest and locally Tennis New Zealand has cancelled all tournaments and interclub until May 2.
While the prize money for ATP tournaments is good, tennis players have a lot of expenses and Daniell says he’s having to dip into his savings.
‘‘I’m thinking of ways where I can make a bit of income while I’m here, because it will be from the Davis Cup, which was March, to mid-June probably, before we can make any money on tour,’’ Daniell said.
‘‘But it’s only right to keep a bit of perspective and say there are going to be hundreds of millions of people who are in a worse situation than tennis players who can’t train.’’
Wimbledon, which is meant to start on June 29, is still scheduled to take place and there have been suggestions that big tournaments could eventually start being played without spectators, but Daniell doesn’t think that’s a good idea, as you’d still have players flying in from all over the world.
While Daniell is still able to train, Routliffe is stuck in Canada, unable to do anything tennis related.
‘‘I’m doing home workouts and that’s really all I can do,’’ she said.
‘‘I’m doing some running outside and workouts, but I can’t really hit because the hard thing is that it’s winter here, so I can’t hit outside and all of the indoor courts are closed.’’
Routliffe, who is becoming more of a doubles specialist, plays a lot of the higher end ITF tournaments, which is below the WTA level and the prize money there is barely enough for the players to break even.
‘‘If we don’t play, we don’t get paid and even when we’re playing some of us don’t get paid that much,’’ she said.
‘‘So it’s not like we have all this money saved up. It’s really hard for training, especially on this side of the world right now.
‘‘New Zealand is lucky because there aren’t many cases and the borders are closing, which is good.
‘‘With tennis it’s difficult and it will be an expensive time. They said there’s no tournaments until June 7, but who knows?
‘‘I’m sure everything is going to get pushed back, because this doesn’t seem like a thing that last a few weeks, it will take months to get it sorted.
‘‘Hopefully soon I’ll be able to figure out a plan of how I’ll be able to train.
‘‘Usually you can train outside from mid-April here, so that will make things better. It will be cold, but better than nothing.’’
‘‘If we don’t play, we don’t get paid . . .’’ Erin Routliffe