2020 Tennis Thread

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Originally Posted by Nadal Fan

https://twitter.com/user/status/1300084382724763648

If only you could smash COVID-19 like smashing a racket.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1300040689468821504

[Nadal Fan]

This may be an unpopular opinion but I feel like Grand Slams already do a good job at allocating prize money to players. If you lose in the first round at the US Open you get $60,000. For one day's work that's not bad. That's about what Elias Lindholm makes per game on the Flames.

The smaller tournaments I'm not as familiar with them but I know it's really rough for some players who fly around the world and net like $50 after playing. Those are the tournaments where they should be focusing their energy on, because players ranked outside the top 100 rarely even make the Grand Slams.

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Originally Posted by Nadal Fan

This may be an unpopular opinion but I feel like Grand Slams already do a good job at allocating prize money to players. If you lose in the first round at the US Open you get $60,000. For one day's work that's not bad. That's about what Elias Lindholm makes per game on the Flames.

The smaller tournaments I'm not as familiar with them but I know it's really rough for some players who fly around the world and net like $50 after playing. Those are the tournaments where they should be focusing their energy on, because players ranked outside the top 100 rarely even make the Grand Slams.

I don't think that's a fair statement though because it doesn't take into account how much work has been done by a player to get their ranking up high enough to qualify for direct entry into a grand slam tourney (especially this year when there are no qualification rounds). Most of that work was likely done on lower level tours where players make peanuts. Vasek is on record saying that only 14% of ATP revenue is allocated to tournament pay. Compared to other major sports, that's a very low percentage. Also, I think Vasek realizes that it's the lower level players (those in the 100-300 level range). Note: the following is taken from an article that is a year old, but I don't think much has changed in the last 12 months.

“I felt passionate because I felt there was a lot of … unfairness, that we didn’t have any representation looking out for the players’ best interests,” Pospisil said, adding that of any increases in the revenue sharing, a percentage would be put towards players on the lower-tier Challenger Tour.

“There’s only 100 players who can make a living, which is incredible, because it’s such a global business. Everybody knows how tough it is on the lower tours. The goal is to grow the sport, and to make it from 100 guys who can make a living, to 300 guys. And also to get a fair revenue sharing, whatever that ends up being. It’s just a monopoly right now.”

https://theprovince.com/sports/tenni...evenue-sharing

[GirlySports]

On average, the 125th ranked golfer makes 6x more than the 125th tennis player.

[Nadal Fan]

I appreciate the open discussion, as I said I don't know everything about what's going on and I support lower ranked players getting a bigger share of the pie. I'm also not totally against unionization but have concerns on how it's being done. I find this discussion fascinating and hopefully you don't take my skepticism the wrong way.

Good point about grinding away on the smaller tournaments to get the ranking points, but also players in the NHL had to grind away in the WHL or college or Europe before getting paid. There is a substantial amount of work they also had to put in, that they didn't get paid for.

14% of prize money is very small I agree, but you have to remember it's expensive to operate the facilities that house the events. Each Grand Slam installed roofs and at a cost of well over $100 million USD it's not cheap. I'm not sure if they received any public funds to build them but I assume not. They had to pay for everything out of pocket, and really only make revenue 2 weeks of the year, the other 50 it's vacant.

From what I saw the US Open in Golf has total prize money of $12.5 million for 156 players ($80,000 per player) while the US Open tennis tournament awards $53 million for 256 players ($200,000 per player). That's a substantial difference between the two, mind you one is 4 days and the other two weeks .

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It's all good NF - I think as a young man or woman if you're planning to embark on a professional tennis career that you'd better be either be extremely confident in your abilities or have a solid backup plan just in case things don't work out. Either that or you have a agent/agency that lines you up with great endorsements.

If we want to continue with the NHL comparison, the top 750 hockey players in the world play in a league that has the following as a minimum guaranteed salary:

The NHL's minimum wage is $700,000 in 2019-2020 and $750,000 in 2021-2022

Obviously, there is no guaranteed money in tennis (aside from exhibitions and other special events which are reserved for the top players) and earnings are directly tied to performance. The player is also on the hook for all expenses including travel, hotels, and coaching. If you get injured, the money stops flowing in and your ranking drops while you are inactive and once your protected status dries up, you're toiling away again on the Challenger tour to build that ranking back up.

I just think there needs to be two major changes - The players on both the ATP and WTA tours need to be getting a much larger share of revenue and the distribution of the money needs to be altered to help out the lower level tours. The guys in the top 100 will generally be fine, but the guys ranked 101-300 are struggling to even break even which is something that could be improved with some changes.

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In other news, this young Spaniard could be the next Nadal (he's a righty though).

https://twitter.com/user/status/1300010871771590656

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https://twitter.com/user/status/1300236635217555457

[Nadal Fan]

I agree with what you wrote DP, more than 100 tennis players in the world should be able to make a comfortable living playing tennis. I hope they have the answers on how to achieve it, or at least a viable plan on how they will achieve it.

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This could turn out to be problematic...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1300331527730089986

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Shapo is the lone Canadian in action today at the US Open...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1300042455476305920

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Denis breaks Petr Korda's son to take the opening set 6-4

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Young Korda takes set 2 6-4. Shapo needs to pick things up, pretty sloppy play.

[Nadal Fan]

Korda is ranked 205 in the world, what the heck Shapo. Hopefully this is the wake up call he needs and he takes sets 3 and 4 easily.

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Man, Shapo is frustrating to watch at times - Easy second serve ball right of the middle of the service box and he sends a forehand long. Of course, he did go on to get the break of Korda in that game, but against a higher ranked player, you're not going to get those kind of multiple chances to break serve.

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Denis now up two sets to one on Korda as he takes set 3 6-3. Finish this in four Shapo.

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Okay, now that was a great point and a wicked forehand down the line for another break of Korda by Denis.

Edit: Point below

https://twitter.com/user/status/1300516730570182657

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Couple of upsets today:

Norrie takes out #9 seed Schwartzmann in five sets
Egor Gerasimov eliminates #18 seed Dusan Lajovic in four sets

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Shapo advances to round 2 with a 6-4 4-6 6-3 6-2 win over Sebastian Korda.

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19 year old wild card Brandon Nakashima from San Diego wins his opening round match over Paolo Lorenzi in straight sets. I've watched a few youtube vids of Brandon and he certainly could be somebody to watch over the next couple of years, massive ground strokes and great court coverage.