PTP professionals are rarely at home, constantly packing and unpacking their bags, barely seeing family or friends. Starting out on the professional circuit, players stay in cheap hotels and struggle to make ends meet without financial sponsorship. At the start of a player’s professional career the annual schedule includes $10,000, $15,000 and $25,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournaments. This figure is the overall prize money for the draw, therefore the winner of a $10,000 event will only take home $1,080 in prize money before tax deductions, barely breaking even for the week.

 

Pursuing a career as a professional tennis player requires £20,000 – £65,600+ annually. This includes training, coaching, accommodation, travel and two tournaments on average per month based on an annual 52-week schedule.

 

When travelling to tournaments on tour, the main costs include:

 

- Travel

- Accommodation

- Food & Beverages

- Stringing

- Court fee

- Physiotherapy (If needed)

- Coaching (If applicable)

- Travel Insurance

 

On average a player can expect to stay 5 days at a given tournament. Therefore, the weekly costs are £400 – £1,000+. If the athlete plays two ITF tournaments a month (24 annually) then the annual costs are £9,600 – £24,000+, respectively.

 

Expenses for training at home can range depending on duration and frequency of overall training, which include:

 

- On court coaching

- Court fees

- Strength & conditioning

- Mental training

- Nutrition

- Physiotherapy

- Equipment

 

On average a player can expect to practice at least 5 days a week, therefore training costs can range from £200– £800+ weekly. For a 52-week training year this would come to £10,400 – £41,600+.

 

Players need to travel outside of Europe to compete in the higher-level tournaments, which the 2014 calendar reveals will be mostly based in Asia, Australia and North America. Without a sustainable financial backing PTP players will not be able to compete in these tournaments regularly enough and therefore not reach their highest ranking potential on the professional circuit.