The loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/27/the-loneliness-of-the-low-ranking-tennis-player

by jgwil2 • 2 years ago

347 278 2 years ago

chasebank2• 2 years ago

Andre Agassi spent the 9th most time as #1 tennis player in the world and in his book, Open, he says multiple times how lonely of a sport tennis is. I think the loneliness of tennis affects the whole spectrum of the ranks, not just the bottom.

FWIW, Open is one of my favorite books and a very easy read if you're interested.

mattw2121• 2 years ago

Open is a great book and so is "You Cannot Be Serious".

jakub_g3• 2 years ago

There's a few references specifically to Agassi a few times in this writeup

Andre Agassi was lonely but never alone, players on the Futures tour are both.

photon_lines4• 2 years ago

Agassi is a far outlier though. I'm not saying that it's not a lonely road, but I remember reading about his dad being a compulsive gambler and him having to play a match for their house when he was 12-14 years old. Think about what it's like having to grow up and go through something like that -- how would you be able to relate to other players who are close to you in rankings? Either way kudos to him for taking that on.

throw0101b• 2 years ago

Vox had a video a few months ago, "Why most tennis players struggle to make a living":

* https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/9/12/23870760/tennis-wages-s...

One anecdote: one ranked player made more money restringing other players's rackets than actually competing.

jakub_g3• 2 years ago

From the original article in the thread:

Those “rich fucks” kept Johnny on the road, mind, as he offered a racket-stringing service to players. Johnny has claimed he’s the only player ever to make a consistent living on the Futures tour, and he kept overheads low, running the school bus on vegetable oil. More recently, he has been making YouTube videos about “extreme couponing”, where he lists the great savings he has made on his weekly grocery shop.

optimalsolver2• 2 years ago

Is it true that "You're not worthy to restring my racket" is a popular insult in tennis circles?

ore0s• 2 years ago

Nope, this isn’t Downton Abbey. The further you go in competitive tennis, the tighter the community gets. Also, playing tennis and stringing rackets are two distinct skillsets. For elite players the strings are just as crucial as the racket itself. Check out this interview with the stringer who traveled the globe with Federer for 15 years, ensuring he had nine freshly strung rackets for each match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sRSqSupzyM

carabiner• 2 years ago

Most olympians too, even medalists: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/02/24/su...

Once at Mammoth in the locker room, I overheard a family mentioning how they bought US olympic ski team jackets from the olympians themselves.

piuantiderp4• 2 years ago

My HS coach was an Olympic medalist.

MisterBastahrd• 2 years ago

Not really sure how this is much different from any consultant who does long projects on the road, at least as far as social isolation is concerned, really. You go to work, you do a job, and then you go back to the hotel. What I suspect is happening on top of everything else for these players is that (a) they're in a competitive field so they have to stay on top of their rest and diet at all times, (b) isolation is definitely a thing, but (c) many of them come from upper middle class backgrounds and it's a culture shock to bleed through money just to travel for tournaments and have proper gear.

p1esk4• 2 years ago

The difference is: consultants are expected to get paid after they complete the job, tennis players lose a lot more matches on average than they win so they usually do not get paid.

fallinditch• 2 years ago

I understand that the actual playing the matches is very isolating too: there may be a crowd of people watching the 2 players but it's just them on the court battling it out. The intensity of the battle and its psychological components probably adds to the isolation on the court, and loneliness off it.

alexpotato2• 2 years ago

A family acquaintance of mine was a consultant with an interesting work/life balance:

- He had no permanent physical residence aka he didn't own a house or rent an apartment (he did have a PO Box in a city just for a legal address)

- Everything he owned was in 4 suitcases

- Other than scheduled PTO, the firm decided where he would go for consulting projects (often on short notice) which could be anywhere in the world

- When he DID have PTO, the firm would pay for ANYTHING he wanted to do. Rent a speedboat? Check! Fly him to Asia to see a friend? Check!

He had a girlfriend (who I was friends with and how I knew him) so I don't think he was totally isolated. That being said, must be tough to put down roots in that situation.

pas5• 2 years ago

but they were paid very well at least, right? whereas tennis seems like a money pit.

asdff4• 2 years ago

Well, consultants also have marketable skills that don't depend on them fighting aging and injury and are actually making money on the road vs going into debt potentially with nothing to show for it. I'd say that helps one sleep easy and not feel so constantly anxious.

et-al• 2 years ago

they're in a competitive field so they have to stay on top of their rest and diet at all times

Versus a consultant where you're racking up miles and points, have a per diem, and usually treated to a client dinner and/or sports game. Personally I enjoyed traveling for work when I was young and single. Depending on the hotel you're staying at, you can meet other traveling workers and commiserate.

p1esk4• 2 years ago

In pro tennis only the top 100 players actually make more money than they spend.

xmprt• 2 years ago

To be fair, the same could be said about a lot of gamers. People spend $1000+ on a gaming PC and even if they enjoy playing competitively, most of them never go pro. I wonder if pro tennis is a case of people not wanting to go pro or not being able to go pro.

Edit: I think a handful of people are misunderstanding my point. I'm saying that not everything has to have a monetary return on investment. Even if the "opportunity cost" of spending all that time grinding is super high, the return is just the enjoyment that one gets from playing the game or from feeling accomplished to reach a certain goal/rank even if it's not pro level.

jncfhnb4• 2 years ago

$1000k on a gaming pc is an extremely small investment compared to the time spent training to be competitive at anything.

hombre_fatal• 2 years ago

If it were just $1000, it would be a bargain. The real cost is the opportunity cost of grinding and never making it.

tpurves2• 2 years ago

$1000 could be less than the costs of just flights to one weekend tennis tournament which, because of seeding, you're highly likely to go out in the first round as a low ranked player.

TeaBrain6• 2 years ago

This may have been true at one time, but it is not true now. 128 players qualify for the first round of each of the four major tournaments and for each, the players have a guaranteed payday even if they lose in the first round. For the 128 who qualify for the US Open, players will get over $80k for just playing the first round, even if they lose.

For example, the 101st ranked ATP (men) player has made over $450k from prize money in just a little over half of this season. The 102nd ranked player has made over $330k so far. Considering that there are two more majors left this year which they'll likely qualify for, they'll likely make another several hundred thousand more at-least this year from just competition.

Many of the top 150 tennis players often make the equivalent amount to their prize money or greater in sponsorships. The lack of sustainable income from just competition becomes more true once you look outside the top 150.

The low ranking tennis players that the article referred to were outside the top 300, which meant that they were stuck playing the futures tournaments where there is little possibility for money. Conor Niland, who wrote the article, only briefly achieved a career high ranking of 129, but spent most of his career ranked outside of the top 300.

https://www.atptour.com/en/players/luca-van-assche/v0dz/over...

https://www.atptour.com/en/players/yoshihito-nishioka/n732/o...

IncreasePosts2• 2 years ago

$330k would be good for an individual with a desk job, but when you factor in the other costs to run the "enterprise" of a tennis player, what does the take home look like?

IE how much does a tennis coach cost? Travel and lodging for tournaments. I'm assuming they might have a medical expert or nutritionist on the staff as well?

p1esk4• 2 years ago

The problem is it is different 128 in each major, and the overlap across all four majors in a year is significantly less than 100. People move up and down the rankings a lot. To actually make a living you need to be consistently in the top 100, year after year. Your two examples are both very good players who spent most of the last 6 months well inside of top 100: in Feb, van Assche was #68 and Nishioka was #47. Of course they did well. Look at those who spent the last 12 months outside of top 100, and remember that total expenses of tour life can get as high as $20k/mo.

naveen995• 2 years ago

They should probably unionize like nba players. nba players beyond the top 100 make 10 times more.

timdellinger• 2 years ago

Ironically enough, professional pickleball players today are making more money than WNBA players and more money than most of the folks that this article talks about.

antisthenes3• 2 years ago

I would bet most of the money comes from endorsing and peddling selling pieces of plastic for $249, when they cost $10 to make in China, not from actual tournament winnings.

office_drone• 2 years ago

Yes, articles on Ben Johns suggest his income is 5% winnings and 95% endorsements.

jncfhnb4• 2 years ago

I don’t understand why these people are continuing to try to play tennis professionally when the odds of them making something resembling a living wage seems so grim. Like, after a few years of trying it’s got to be obvious.

The author here mentions his parents pushing him and his sister to do this. Is the low key story that these are mostly just old money children in a limbo of their parents’ whims and lifelines?

p1esk4• 2 years ago

It’s similar to wanting to start your own company: the odds to succeed are grim.

generic92034• 2 years ago

Or surviving as a book author, or making it as an actor/actress in Hollywood, or ... - they simply have a dream and it is quite hard to find the right timing for giving up such dreams.

pineaux• 2 years ago

This is not true. The odds of becoming a unicorn are grim. The odds of getting a decent wage is actually quite high if you ask me.

Ekaros2• 2 years ago

Maybe like running a restaurant... Other businesses if they are sensible to start with are lot less risky.

tech_ken• 2 years ago

I think that once you've become, ex., the number 1 tennis player in a country it's tough to retrain, both literally and psychologically. Your whole life, and likely your self-worth, are highly enmeshed with the sport. Accepting that it's not going to work out is going to be straight up painful, psychologically, not to mention that you probably are pretty short on other qualifications.

TeaBrain6• 2 years ago

It is exactly this. Tennis has been the focal point of the entire life of these players. I saw this even in the juniors, no matter the success of the players. For those that were really involved in the sport, their entire life revolved around it, to the point where it became part of their identity. Young competitive players will spend most of their available time outside of school to play, that being multiple hours a day, seven days a week, year-round. To stop playing, is not just to make an easy pivot like the guy you responded to thinks it is, but is more like giving up on a religion that you've devoted your entire life and being to.

krisoft• 2 years ago

But if you are the number 1 tennis player in your country in some objective sense, can’t you build a coaching career out of that?

Unless it is some pocket sized country (like the Vatican, or Andora) you should be able to find enough students to support yourself and being the number 1 player should help with marketing your coaching business.

paulcole2• 2 years ago

Why does anybody do anything when the odds are grim?

Either they want to do it anyway or they think they have to do it.

photon_lines4• 2 years ago

Because when you aim for the moon -- even if you miss, you will still be a success (in my mind). I would rather live life as a failed scientist trying to reach a revolutionary breakthrough in understanding or following what I feel is my passion -- even if my odds of reaching what I want to reach may be 0.001 percent, at least striving to reach that point is a great adventure and the pain that comes with it is something worth it and there's no shame in that. More people I think should try it.

neaden• 2 years ago

At a guess, is it to become a tennis coach/pro later on? Like you do this in your 20s then coach at a private high school so they can say they have the former #129th ranked tennis player in the world.

t0mas88• 2 years ago

My previous coach was somewhere in the top 200 at some point. He wasn't very good at teaching tennis... My current one is a long term career tennis teacher with a much lower ranking, but he's very good at teaching.

Being good yourself doesn't add much to your teaching skills. But it does help marketing a bit if you're targeting an audience that wants to become pro themselves.

impossiblefork3• 2 years ago

Yes. This is very common.

Many trainers at clubs here in Sweden are ex-pros who never made the top-200. Even some retired top players work as tennis trainers.

So this escape route exists. Another escape route where you don't have to abandon tennis and still have a chance of going pro is to play at a college in the US.

antisthenes3• 2 years ago

Is the low key story that these are mostly just old money children in a limbo of their parents’ whims and lifelines?

I think that's incredibly reductive, although does have a bit of a point.

The gist of the story is that there's a special kind of loneliness when you're always on the cusp of "making it big" in an industry that is very very top-heavy in terms of rewards. (sports, acting, content creation, startup company, restaurant etc.)

You can spend your entire youth chasing this dream, and it's a lot harder for some people to "give up the dream" than others. You can call this being delusional or you can call it the tyranny of high expectations (from others or from themselves).

Yes, it's a lot easier to feed your delusion if you come from money. That's where a big "ick" for rich people come from - some of them are just incredibly mediocre in terms of skills, with their egos boosted by daddy's wallet.

jncfhnb4• 2 years ago

I more so meant just where are they getting the money to do this? Because the article sure seemed to suggest he was making far less than minimum wage considering his training time and tourney earnings.

TeaBrain6• 2 years ago

People playing tennis professionally aren't simply trying it out. The development of a tennis professional is probably most similar to someone who has been bred to become a classical musician. Those that play tennis or classical music professionally are never just trying something out, but have been fully immersed since childhood, to the point where their entire life revolves around playing. To give it up, would be to give up the one thing that their entire life has revolved around since childhood.

jncfhnb4• 2 years ago

Giving up the thing your life has revolved around since childhood because it’s just not happening is totally reasonable though.

riku_iki2• 2 years ago

To give it up, would be to give up the one thing that their entire life has revolved around since childhood.

I imagine they could try to transfer to some coaching carrier, open personal business, etc.

asdff4• 2 years ago

Any of those players can go on to make excellent hourly offering lessons to adults and wealthy children. Its a poor slog now but that doesn't mean the experience has no value they could get from it.

photon_lines4• 2 years ago

I'd say from my limited vantage point that it looks like it's only partially social pressure. The media glamourizing sports stars I'd say is the root-cause. This doesn't just apply to tennis - it applies to every sport. Look at what Jordan did to the NBA and how many kids wanted to be in his shoes growing up -- they don't realize what comes with the 'gift' though may not be glamorous or worth the price you pay. You mostly see the very rich life-style and fan-worship -- behind the scenes most people don't realize the hard work and pain and the pressure some of these athletes have to experience in order to get there. On another note - if anyone wants a great example of this here's a great read (called Federer as a Religious Experience and it's still my favorite piece of sport-writing after 15+ years): https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20fed...

JohnBooty5• 2 years ago

    I don’t understand why these people are continuing 
    to try to play tennis professionally when the odds 
    of them making something resembling a living wage 
    seems so grim

This is a great question and I'll try to answer it.

    Like, after a few years of trying it’s got to be obvious.

It took Roger Federer a few years on the pro tour to break into the top 100.

The difference between the top 100 players and the players ranked 400-500 is not that large and crucially, it's perhaps not the sort of difference you might think.

It's not like, say, power lifting where one guy can lift 500lbs every time and another guy can only lift 300lbs and if he's not able to get near 500lbs then yeah, he can probably see this isn't for him.

In tennis, the 100th ranked guy is doing the same stuff as the 1st ranked guy. Just not as consistently. Even a weekend player occasionally smokes an unreturnable winner right down the line.

A few more reasons.

1. As you climb the rankings and earn more, you can afford better coaching etc.

2. A lot of the low ranked guys have some skills equal to the top 10 guys. But one part of their game may be lacking. They think: if I can just improve that one thing I can go on a run. This isn't delusional, it happens a lot, and even the Federers and Nadals of the world improved their games over time. (Nadal had a subpar serve for years; for example)

3. These guys are young. Athletes peak around ~25 years. A 19 year old ranked #500 is still growing. It'd be different if he was 38 years old and still ranked #500.

4. These guys aren't dumb. They know the odds.

quartesixte3• 2 years ago

Here’s the thing. To become a top athlete/Classical Musician requires a literal lifetime of training. Unless you are an extreme outlier of latent prodigal talent, you must start as soon as humanly possible.

And then throughout this training journey you will be subjected to multiple wash-out/filter tests.

The mass of children get filtered out very quickly — genetic predisposition (aka Talent) is either there or it isn’t. Surviving this purge awards you with the words that will curse and haunt you forever: “You’re so talented!”

By the time you hit pro, you have survived multiple of these events. It is now your identity, your ego. And now in the open waters of competition, it just boils down to “train harder” and “do better”. Maybe next year is the year you finally breakout. What’s to stop you and why stop now? You don’t understand what it means to give up. Giving up is how all the others got washed out years ago. You didn’t wash out. You got the scholarships, the state championships, the mentions in local media. You deserve to be there and Glory is just within reach…

Besides. “You’re so talented!”

By the time you finally hit The Wall and the results show that there is a much bigger fish out in this pond, it’s too late. What are you supposed to do now? You skipped all regular education to get here. You sacrificed your whole life! Your parents paid a fortune.

Besides. It will be a massive waste of “talent.”

And so it goes. Maybe you can swallow enough ego to become a high school tennis coach. Maybe you will be able to be the one who picks the next Federer or Williams. Then you will vicariously finally get your glory and honor and fame.

Because you were talented. It’s what you deserved.

And you will spend your whole life chasing it.

richrichie• 2 years ago

Precisely why professional sports (and entertainment) is not for the odds calculating average person. It is for a different breed of humans. In a literal sense, their genetic stock is different.

Liquix• 2 years ago

I made virtually no lasting friendships on tour through my seven years, despite coming across hundreds of players my own age living the same life as my own.
Some players did go out partying locally, which I always felt was a stupid thing to do. Why put yourself through the budget travel, practice and expense to then go drinking in some remote and isolated corner of the world?

I'm sure Futures events are isolating and lonely, but it seems the author was quick to cast judgment on the players who prioritized socializing over winning at all costs.

tpurves2• 2 years ago

Indeed. By definition, very few aspiring players break through to be among the very top players. But I bet some of those socializing players at least came away from their journey with a little less loneliness and more lasting friendships.

bojan• 2 years ago

Is he wrong? That is an equivalent of weeknight drinking for us (remote) office workers.

Showing up to work with a hangover is not a great thing to do.

jononor• 2 years ago

You do not need to get drunk, or drink any alcohol at all to have a good time. No need to go until early in the morning either...

dukeyukey• 2 years ago

I do not optimise my life to benefit my day job.

And even if I did, socialising with your coworkers has a strong chance of being much better for your career than another early night.

hext• 2 years ago

You can go out for drinks with coworkers and not show up hungover the next day... Like, office happy hours are basically a cliché at this point.

xeromal• 2 years ago

Mentioning loneliness and then complaining about them socializing is kind of a self own

paxys• 2 years ago

Yup, on reading the second part I immediately went "this guy is an introvert". Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I'm exactly like that on work trips and conferences, bolting to my hotel room immediately after the day's work is done. But I don't really buy the "no professional tennis player has any friends" message he's trying to push.

zem• 2 years ago

the trouble is not only was he an introvert, but he did not seem to have any solitary hobbies, not even reading. i'm an introvert too, but i cannot imagine sitting in a hotel room and being desperate for something to do to pass the time to the extent that i would just sleep late.

NickC25• 2 years ago

I'm sure Futures events are isolating and lonely, but it seems the author was quick to cast judgment on the players who prioritized socializing over winning at all costs.

I'm not so sure. These guys don't earn jack shit, even if they win small Futures/Challengers. Taxes, equipment, travel, etc.. adds up quickly. Forget about coaching at that level.

Not the right environment to go party with someone one night and then have to beat them the next day in order to put food on the table.

Keep in mind that at this level, tennis is fucking insanely hard. A few guys from my high school tried that level (they all played D1 at top schools, a few were top 20 USTA as juniors, one made top 3 ITF and was highly ranked within the college game) and none of them fared well.

These (challengers/futures level players) aren't some random scrubs - these are often times guys who either played top college ball, or guys who were top 100 ITF juniors (or top player in their country/region) who never had the game to get to the next level, or guys who were just not quite good enough to make top 100 ATP and need to grind every day to get auto entry to qualies at majors or ATP Masters events.

braza• 2 years ago

These guys don't earn jack shit, even if they win small Futures/Challengers. Taxes, equipment, travel, etc.. adds up quickly. Forget about coaching at that level.

100% agree on this.

I do not know in particular with Tennis but the same is true in MMA also. When I used to do blogging/reporting about MMA I talked with a prominent fighter about the economics of being an UFC fighter.

In a nutshell:He was about to participate of an card event [1] and in case of victory he would take home USD 22-24K and he explained that whole preparation would be USD 29-32K.

The costs were: - Flights (himself and his team with 2 trainers) - Sparring (if you need to do the camp in USA, probably we will have at least 3 sparring partners) - Special Medicine/Supplement (since the Nevada State Athletic Commission had some specific requirements in terms of anti-doping he could not have all normal supplements/medicine) - His agent - Pre-Camp / Camp (For instance if you're grappler and you will face a striker you will need to adjust your training accordingly) - Post-Fight doctors (general scanning and treatment in case of some severe injury)

After that I was so shocked about how that economics did not make any sense, and he explained to me that the whole thing in UFC is just to build his brand and bring more students to his gym, and prepare his own gym for camp to other fighters.

I have absolute respect for the rest of 99% in any sport because its a very tough business and its very different from what we see in TV.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_on_Fox:_Lawler_vs._Brown

alexpotato2• 2 years ago

By the time he had cracked the top 20, he was ignoring me completely.

Many years ago, I was the global "head of support" for the main trading application at a large bank.

I sat on the trading floor (b/c most of my users were there) and one of my jobs involved training the newly hired junior traders how to use the software.

The training was usually on their first or second day on the floor. At this point in the story, they were INCREDIBLY polite to me. "Thank you so much for showing us this", "Wow! This training is so great! We really appreciate it!"

Within two or three days, they stopped saying hello or even talking to me unless they were having an issue or there was an outage.

Reading about how ranking determines social interactions in the tennis world resonated rather strongly with me given my experiences working in technology at a bank.

noisy_boy• 2 years ago

This is reflection of our innate tendency to fit ourselves in an hierarchy and judge others by their perceived position in that hierarchy. The stronger someone attaches their self worth to their place in this hierarchy (ranking for tennis players, job title in corporate setting etc), the stronger their behaviour towards others will be driven by it.

mgh2• 2 years ago

Ego is a universal human problem, not only at work and sports, but in anything in life.

sublinear4• 2 years ago

This may be true, but I'd also argue that distinguishing power solely derived from hierarchy (nepotism) and everything else can be difficult.

I might be misunderstanding, but it sounds like you're saying meritocratic hierarchy can't exist. The observed behavior of someone in a higher position might simply be because it's their job to detect and correct ignorance and inefficiency.

brnt• 2 years ago

This is reflection of our innate tendency to fit ourselves in an hierarchy and judge others by their perceived position in that hierarchy.

* some peoples innate tendency.

I have always observed this behaviour as typical for one or two of Moltke's quadrants, people I so far have managed to be quite insulated from.

ldjkfkdsjnv• 2 years ago

Such a bizarre thing to experience, especially when you first join the work world.

altdataseller• 2 years ago

Maybe im missing something but what is so strange about that? Once you stopped training them and thanked you, what else are they supposed to thank you for everyday?

optimalsolver2• 2 years ago

And yet I'm sure they managed to think up something to say to people higher in status than themselves.

mensetmanusman• 2 years ago

Being a non-treadmill human.

trevor-e2• 2 years ago

what else are they supposed to thank you for everyday

OP: > they stopped saying hello or even talking to me

The OP said they completely stopped talking, which is weird to not acknowledge someone you previously would talk to. Seems like sociopathic behavior to me, which these professions tend to attract. They got what they wanted/needed out of the relationship and now could care less.

tomcam4• 2 years ago

In the States saying hello to one’s coworkers is regarded as a common courtesy.

Waterluvian2• 2 years ago

If I ignore you or anyone, please instead assume it’s because interacting with you or anyone is very exhausting. I can and will be polite and full of smiles as you train me, but that’s by far the hardest part of my day.

tomcam4• 2 years ago

It’s hard to say hello?

jahnu• 2 years ago

Hah! Same experience with some not even junior traders when I worked in finance in Sydney. As soon as they graduated to junior trader I was shit to them. Only 80% of them but was instructive.

Stratoscope• 2 years ago

At a company I worked for years ago, I was the "onboarding buddy" for a new hire. My job was to welcome him and help him learn the ropes.

He was very respectful and appreciative of my assistance.

After the onboarding period I learned that he was hired to be the manager of our team.

Everything changed. Now it was "I am the boss, you are the worker. I will assign you tasks and expect you to complete them. And don't question my decisions!"

asdff4• 2 years ago

Most individual competitive sports are like this. The top of the crop get the bulk of the tournament payouts, the bottom get a pittance that barely cover their costs to attend the tournament, and the ones who miss the cut entirely get a mound of debt for making their way out there to merely be a warm body for other talent to route. Sponsorships help cover some costs but not everyone can get very lucrative sponsor deals especially a low rank player. There's honestly better money giving lessons for probably $150-250 an hour or so than there is making a go at the world stage. I'm sure that's a path many end up taking after the writing is clear on the wall.

jakub_g3• 2 years ago

Not to mention that in many sports, you can literally be a world champion level and just barely affording to cover the necessary costs (best equipment, long training camps abroad etc.) to compete at the highest level.

In my country we have olympic medalists in kayaking, rowing etc. and they are nowhere close to making any money out of it.

johannes12343212• 2 years ago

In my country we have olympic medalists in kayaking, rowing etc. and they are nowhere close to making any money out of it.

That's the reason that in many countries the zoom Olympic athletes work for the state (soldier, police, ...) where training and representing the country at competitions are part of the Job and once the aports career is over ideally they get a job as clerk or such in the administration

avalys• 2 years ago

Is there any reason to expect it should be otherwise? Competing in sports is a very selfish thing to do, and produces no benefit for anyone else unless you’re good enough to be entertaining to watch, so why should anyone expect to make money doing it? You’re adding no value to society.

kazinator• 2 years ago

That's because sports is is an entertainment medium.

It's exactly the same like you could be the best jazz trumpeter in the world, and broke.

You have to be on top of a popular sport, whose events are broadcast and viewed by huge numbers of people.

IncreasePosts2• 2 years ago

My cousin won a bronze medal in a non-prestigious event in 2004, and according to him there are a ton of people who love hiring Olympic level athletes, because they believe that they have the personality to strive to win.

So, he barely won any money from the actual sport itself, but his job prospects after he retired were very good, even for someone who was in his mid-thirties and almost no real work experience.

gnicholas2• 2 years ago

The true unfortunates, though, were the ones who were talented enough to rationally hope to advance. These were people who grew up as the best tennis players in their country, but were stuck between 300 and 600 in the world, not quite contending for the Challenger Tour nor the qualifiers at grand slams, but winning just often enough to keep their tennis dream faintly alive.

Seems like a familiar pattern.

renewiltord• 2 years ago

Just like startups innit? Fail quick or win big. But the worst is muddling along. You might be a figma you might be nobody. Nothing to do but keep going. M

deely3• 2 years ago

I'm not sure that I agree with this metaphor. Slow win can still become a working good business even without becoming a unicorn.

ilaksh• 2 years ago

I don't think people are putting this in proper perspective. Top 2000 in the whole world? There are millions of smart and athletic tennis players.

The guy in this article is not really even low ranking. There are millions of people who play tennis multiple times a week and wish they could rank that high. He is actually already in an elite group.

It seems like it's really only a fraction of the top 1% that can make this into a viable healthy career.

Anyone who is even surviving as a pro tennis player without another source of income has elite skills.

lurker919• 2 years ago

When I was a child I dreamed of being a professional sportsperson - a soccer star or a tennis pro. Now in my late 20s, I shudder thinking of the pressure/stress, injuries and constant competitiveness that my life would have been if I had gone down that path.

impossiblefork3• 2 years ago

Soccer is actually okay though.

You can be top 100 in Sweden and be a professional making good money. Being top 100 in Sweden is actually achievable. But in tennis you have top 128 in the world.

j7ake4• 2 years ago

The nice thing about team sports is that a team needs support players as well as superstars.

This means there’s a career for people who aren’t the best talent wise but are willing to contribute to the team in other ways.

amelius• 2 years ago

Is there a self reinforcing effect that keeps high ranking tennis players in the higher ranks, other than playing regularly against other high ranked players?

pas5• 2 years ago

genetics, skill, ability, mindset.

sure more money translates to better coaching probably, but it seems that ceteris paribus better players can spend many years being better.

so basically rising players have an logarithmic curve with an asymptote. and sure they are getting better and higher, but they should estimate their peak. especially because even if current top players retire younger ones can easily take the spot from more experienced players.

all in all the current ranking system is very efficient (lots of data points, it's not like boxing where matches are organized after some initial success to maximize the money made, slowly take on opponents that seem beatable or otherwise lucrative, etc.)

tennis and other very athletic individual sports are mature (progress is mostly due to technology, dietary know-how, better data-driven coaching), and there's just no big chance of an underdog beating the numbers. (especially considering that the numbers are much better, again due to more and better data and compute)

gumby• 2 years ago

Was just reflecting on this yesterday: when I parked my car I saw a paper sign on the lamppost: “learn tennis from a professional”. The person was the number 1 player in Nepal, ranked in the 1200s professionally.

I assume and hope he was in Palo Alto as a student and just wanted to make some beer money. Otherwise that sign would reflect a pretty tough situation.

The Stanford faculty family swim and tennis club has a pro, the local Palo Alto tennis and skating club has a pro…there are a lot of them to go around.

gnicholas2• 2 years ago

Plus all the kids advertising on Nextdoor, including members of Stanford's team.

dcreater• 2 years ago

He most likely will make more money coaching than playing competitive tennis. Especially in the Bay area.

titanomachy• 2 years ago

He would probably make more money washing cars in the bay area than doing almost any job in Nepal. It's a dismally poor country.

nextworddev• 2 years ago

Sounds like pro tennis has a lot in common with startup world and SV

pas5• 2 years ago

startups have a much higher variance, and a good product is a good product even if it doesn't grow into the next X (pun? no no.)

staminade• 2 years ago

I really recommend reading any of David Foster Wallace's essays about tennis. The book "String Theory" collects all his writing on the subject. He was a lifelong fan of the sport, but also a nationally ranked junior player and he's able to provide exceptional insight in the insane dedication (as well as talent) needed to reach even the lowest rungs of the competitive tennis world, and what a grind the tour can be for lower ranked professionals.

papa-whisky• 2 years ago

The essay that the book takes its title from is particularly relevant to this discussion and freely available online: https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david...

(As an aside, I'm surprised to see this in Esquire, do they still publish writing like this or was it a very different magazine "back in the day"?)

daseiner13• 2 years ago

Can’t comment on the current state of Esquire, but it certainly was “legit” in the past. I’ll take this opportunity to promote the classic Esquire piece “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has...

BaculumMeumEst• 2 years ago

I felt slightly unhinged when I instinctively control F'd for "infinite" upon seeing this headline for no particular reason, glad to find this comment.

chasebank2• 2 years ago

There’s a really fun YouTube series where a virtually no name ex-NBA player challenges top amateurs to 1 on 1. It’s not even close. Brian Scalabrine is his name and his famous quote is “I’m way closer to Lebron than you are to me.”

The dedication to become a top .0001% athlete is absolutely nuts and beyond that is uncomprehendable.

https://www.basketballnetwork.net/old-school/when-brian-scal...

freddie_mercury2• 2 years ago

Yeah that series is great. And you can tell sometimes he'll play against someone who has a good move or something that works for about 12 seconds before he adjusts/remembers how to deal with it.

naveen995• 2 years ago

Math >> comprehension.

0.0001% is one in a million. Or within top 7000 rank out of 7 billion humans globally. Or about 0.001% or one in a 100k out of the 700-1000 million in 20-30 age group.

There are about 70000 pro athletes in the world. So only 1 in a 10000 or 0.01% to be a pro athlete when you are in the age group.

Takes less than a year of recreational devotion for a smart healthy person to get into top 1% globally. getting into 0.01% is obviously more competitive and requires you to give up other things.

Workaccount22• 2 years ago

I believe the origin of Scalabrines channel was from people who absolutely grilled his performance while he was pro. He came out and said "If you think I suck so much, come 1v1 me." He then promptly stomped his detractors on the court

photon_lines4• 2 years ago

Here's a fantastic piece by him talking about how amazing Federer was when he first came up: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20fed...

rapsey• 2 years ago

As well as Open by Andre Agasi. One of the greatest autobiographies.

tthhy58855• 2 years ago

Sounds awfully like academia.

I hate meeting some of my former colleagues. Worse, success in academia is not entirely determined by how smart you are - your ability to socialize and market had far greater impact.

Ofc. academics' priority for knowledge is far far lower today than fame and money.

anthomtb• 2 years ago

I spent much of my late teens and early twenties cursing my thin boned and uncoordinated body, wishing their was some sport in which I would not be the worst, let alone the best. I idolized athletes across all sorts of sports and wished I could become one.

Articles like this make me almost thankful for a lack of physical gifts. An obsessive personality combined with any natural athletic talent would likely have lead to a futile attempt to make a living from sport. Instead, my career is as unglamorous as described in the TFA but the wages are certainly better. And I am probably fitter and get more enjoyment out of recreational sports than most who were truly top-level athletes at some point in their lives. If there's a higher power out there, I am pretty sure they had my back here.

lostlogin• 2 years ago

It could be worse, you could have ability and obsessive parents.

I’m a radiographer. Several times I’ve scanned kids aged less than 10 for pretty badly injured joints related to sport. Stuck in my mind are two - both completely munted elbows.

One did several hours of tennis every day, and all day Saturday and Sunday. The other had much the same regime for golf.

Their parents were set on making world famous athletes.

It was quite depressing.

dclowd99012• 2 years ago

Is that not considered negligence or abuse?

The_Colonel3• 2 years ago

It's sad how kids seem to be for these parents just a mean to an end.

jarsin2• 2 years ago

In my opinion, from spending many hours playing with former D1 players, these guys come out of those top tier programs screwed for life.

The dream is dead and now they have nothing. Not even the love of the sport they spent 8 hours a day playing from five years old just to get into the D1 programs.

magpi3• 2 years ago

The discipline that competitive sports instills in a person still translates into other areas of their life. My athletic career hit a dead end too, but staying with a sport and grinding out progress over the years taught me something that I still use in my forties.

nradov• 2 years ago

Thin boned and uncoordinated bodies can do well in road cycling and distance running. If you're obsessive enough to execute the right workouts every day then you can get pretty good, although only a tiny number of people make a living from those sports.

turdprincess• 2 years ago

Thin boned and uncoordinated? Rock climbing is your sport! Go to a local gym and try it for a few months and you might find yourself getting really good really fast

rvba2• 2 years ago

There are those programming championships. Like "top coder"

j7ake4• 2 years ago

Sad story to read.

It is almost as if it is better to have failed out early than to spend your prime years trying to break it into the top 100.

Classical music, art, poet, writers, pro athletes all fall into this category.

mattm• 2 years ago

Any public entertainment jobs where the people at the top are famous

drchiu• 2 years ago

As a parent with kids who play junior tennis, I remind them after every loss (and win) that this is just a hobby.

But the number of parents who take this so seriously would surprise anyone not part of this culture.

The travelling, the hotel rooms, the large number of tournaments played every week -- all these things start early (7-8 years old). School? Forget about it. They're superficially home-schooled. Tennis is all they do, and if they're lucky (at least by the standards of the article), they don't get good enough to be a low-level "pro" and get a chance to go to school for a proper education and get a regular job that pays well.

If they're unlucky, they get a D1 school, on a full-ride scholarship, and then waste a few years of their lives continuuing to damage their bodies in pursuit of "making it" as a pro tennis player.

nightowl_games• 2 years ago

Maybe even if you don't make it, you'd look back fondly on your time as a competitor as a formative period. I'm sure you'd gain lots of skills by having such discipline and rigor.

eviks• 2 years ago

But then you've wasted all the time you could've applied all that "discipline and rigor" to

aeonik• 2 years ago

Meh, I was in the "Tennis Machine".

I did not learn any discipline because everything was scheduled for me. I really didn't like most of my experience.

Two positives:

1. I kept a lot my agility, muscle, and flexibility. Even after ceasing all physical activity for over 10 years.

2. Sharpened the connection between my mind and body. I'm really good at learning new physical skills that require fine motor control.

Though I'm sure many, many other activities can provide these benefits as well.

If I could go back, I would spend less time in those tennis camps, less time playing WoW, and more time in shop class, and hanging with the robotics people.

sharkweek• 2 years ago

My young son is really getting into tennis and I grew up playing as well so I’m excited.

It’s hard not to let my imagination run wild about him walking out center court at Wimbledon (okay fine I’d take the French Open too), with me in the stands cheering him on.

But then I see what it takes to even get to a D1 level (private coaching, academies where he’s fodder for the golden goose, et al) let alone making it to The Show and I would never in a million years want to subject my child to that kind of torture.

I’ve come to accept it’s most likely he might play in high school and him and I can enjoy playing together as a fun bonding activity.

Serena said in that HBO documentary about her that she’d never put her kids into the Tennis machine and that’s about as much validation as I’ll ever need.

quartesixte3• 2 years ago

Something I grapple with as someone who washed out of the classical music pipeline and recreationally participate in an Olympic sport: if my future child gets identified as Talented, will I let them go down the Path? Because What-If they’re actually world-dominating talent? Will it be right of me to derail that in the name of risk-adversity?

I say this because I got washed out during a critical development phase (I was 10 years old) due to some poorly timed family crises and an abusive teacher. I think I’ve done okay for myself and still play as a hobby but the what-ifs do enter my daydreams from time to time…

quacked• 2 years ago

Will I let them go down the Path?

A serious training regime in any enjoyable skill between 5 and 20 can be a very rewarding thing once you reach adulthood. If you're not an elite musician, you can still be in a very popular local band or ensemble and play festivals and gatherings. If you're a varsity high school athlete you can play at a high level in clubs through adulthood and maybe teach on the side.

I think Talented children should be shown the path, and if they have the natural drive and competitiveness then you can meet them at that level and encourage it.

The mandolin player in my band is a talented mandolinist, singer, pianist, and guitarist. He told me once that his parents made him practice 3 hours of classical piano every day for many years and he absolutely hated it. I asked him if he wished he hadn't been made to do that, and he said no, he wouldn't voluntarily give up the musical advantages that training conferred on him. He's perfectly happy as a 21 year old CS student that plays in a band.

AtlasBarfed2• 2 years ago

Parents need to, pardon my French, wake the fuck up.

As a former us division III track athlete I am well aware of the many many tiers of pure athletic ability that exists.

#200 in the world at any sport has astounding superhuman abilities. Pros are born with 80-95%of the raw ability and the rest is training.

There is a 99.9999% chance or worse your Olympian in training won't make it. If they do, 99% of them will last a year or two at most.

10000 hours only gets you to competence.

Michael Jordan famously was cut from his high school bball team, but he had a 40 inch vertical even back then.

sillyfluke2• 2 years ago

Pros are born with 80-95% of the raw ability and the rest is training.

The difficulty with this statement is trying to get it to override the glaring anecdotal counterexample staring every parent-child pair in the face.

You have one dude who had no cultivated knowledge of the sport and took a couple of tennis lessons from "Old Whiskey" then wrote a 85 page plan and then will-powered the shit out of getting his physically non-alike non-identical twin daughters to be pro tennis athletes.

The idea that the guy who had a tennis idea just happened to come by two daughters who were already possesing 85-90% god given talent for the sport he just happened to specifically pick is hard for a human to wrap their mind around I think.

Don't get be wrong, it could still be true. But if it's true, some should still test it.

zemvpferreira• 2 years ago

I hold the unpopular opinion that serious child sports are child labour, and parents should be punished as such. The same goes for chess, dancing, acting or any other such pursuit.

Any child activity that resembles a job if you squint is going too far. I don't care if we never see another Mozart, Federer or Michael Jackson. It's abuse to squeeze a child into such a narrow life. It produces broken adults.

Let kids be kids.

helij• 2 years ago

"The greats in tennis often become known by their first names – Roger, Rafa, Serena..."

When was this written? He forgot Novak.

lizknope2• 2 years ago

I always felt that the point of playing sports was to do something as a team. Drawing up a football play to throw the ball to the open receiver. Score a touchdown and everyone gets high fives. Or get the basketball rebound and pass to an open teammate for the shot.

When you win you all go out for pizza and have fun. Or you lose and still go out for pizza.

Playing a single player sport like tennis seems lonely just thinking about it.

naveen995• 2 years ago

One on one can be fun in basketball, ping pong. Problem with tennis is it’s hard to talk to your friendly opponent from opposite sides of the court.

Team sports are more optimized for spectators than for the fun of the athlete.

jarsin2• 2 years ago

Tennis for adults and college is team based.

mastazi3• 2 years ago

I think that this applies to most human endeavours, not just sport.

I used to produce electronic music on my own, as a side gig; it felt very solitary and I am thankful to be now part of a band where I can interact with other musicians who became also good friends; money-wise it is worse but it's not my main income so I'm fine with that.

As a software developer, I have worked for a few years as a solo freelancer, it felt in some ways like what the author describes in the OP, moving to a "traditional" 9-to-5 dev job actually felt like a breath of fresh air, despite all the shortcomings of that type of job.

lizknope2• 2 years ago

I'm in integrated circuit design and one of the most rewarding aspects is brainstorming with coworkers on a white board. When someone asks a question about a bug in the flow and you have the answer it feels good to help and vice versa when someone else helps you. Sometimes the job sucks when the deadlines are approaching so its nice to be able to complain about the stress with coworkers while getting a beer. In many ways a good team at work is similar to a sports team at least from what I remember in school.

munificent• 2 years ago

I used to produce electronic music on my own, as a side gig; it felt very solitary and I am thankful to be now part of a band where I can interact with other musicians who became also good friends

I've gone both directions. Made electronic music by myself. Then started a couple of bands in my 20s. Those ended when I had kids and moved across the country. Then I got back into making electronic music by myself in my 40s.

I miss the cameraderie of being in a band dearly. But at the same time, the logistics are so much easier making electronic music on my own. I can just noodle on it whenever I get a spare minute. There's something lonely about the resulting music always being exactly what I could come up with, but there's also something rewarding about being able to really dig in to my own weird tastes and preferences without having to compromise with bandmates. I'm sure it would be very hard to find someone else who wanted to make electronic music close enough to what I'm into right now to be worth collaborating.

dclowd99012• 2 years ago

Man, this is such a downer. I think most rational people avoid a professional sports career unless they “have that special something,” but so few do. To scrape and struggle for years on end all alone during it must absolutely gut a person.

pbj1968• 2 years ago

Yes, the talent quickly falls off a cliff once you get into weird, niche sports. Remember this when the Olympics roll around. If the truly gifted set themselves towards many of those events, the records would be obliterated.

LarsDu88• 2 years ago

It's crazy how strong the power law distribution holds for success in the real world.

Tennis stars, youtubers tech startups, videogames on steam, even drug cartels...

In a given year, the top 5 in any of these categories can end up absorbing more than 50% of the entire market!

There should be a class in high school that goes over the wealth distribution of various industries...

yalogin• 2 years ago

This is the problem with any profession where there is a pyramid structure people vie to be part of. It takes an immense of dedication to reach that spot and the competition is insane. You spend all waking hours working on that craft with no assurance that you can even make a living off it. This is why I never pushed my kids towards sports as much as I love it.

telchior• 2 years ago

By random chance I recently had a flight seated next to a coach for a young player who was in the women's Future bracket. The coach had been a Future player once too.

I've never really understood, at an emotional level, why pro sports exist. So after a while of conversation, during which he mentioned a few times how difficult life was for them, I finally felt like I could ask:

"If it's like you've described, why do it at all?"

He stared into space for a good few seconds, then responded:

"Glory."

I've wondered a few times since then whether the girl he was coaching would think that glory was enough; she had a look that, following the article, I'd describe as glassy-eyed loneliness. But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation. For myself... I still don't really get it.

The_Colonel3• 2 years ago

But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation.

Most of these people "burn" their youth chasing the dream and don't get a non-sport education/experience. A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job.

barry-cotter• 2 years ago

This seems very unlikely to me given the propensity of finance firm to hire even college athletes never mind people who got to be in the top one or 200 of their sport in the world. Anyone who is capable of pushing the work in day after day to get a good at some thing that doesn’t very well like sport is capable of putting enormous amount of work day after day to get good at something that does pay well. Most famously jocks are good at sales. Athletes are no fools. Often of the top of my head Michael Jordan has had a very successful career as an investor after the end of his sporting career. Michelle Debruin, and Irish Olympic gold medallist in swimming, went on to become a Barrister, a trial lawyer in the American parlance. The people who stay in Borsh are staying in sports because they really really love i,t not because they’re not capable of making more money in other ways.

codeulike2• 2 years ago

A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job

So its like a slow-burning pyramid scheme powered by youthful optimism?

dimator• 2 years ago

Nobody decides to pursue their pro sports dream out of pragmatism or a career. They do it because its their calling and they don't care about the odds. They know that a fractional percentage will achieve the highest highs, and they go forth anyway.

eastbound• 2 years ago

But Roger Federer was 18 when he first won Roland Garros (French Open). Shouldn’t they quit if they are not going to be at the top?

prawn• 2 years ago

I found this article about a young swimmer really interesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/02...

I know a family with a pre-teen son investing a huge amount of time in another individual sport. 4-5 hours every weeknight, putting pressure on schooling and on the family by limiting schedules and recreation. They all give a certain look when they talk about it, knowing that there is a cost to creating (potentially) an elite athlete. At least the kid himself doesn't look glass-eyed and lonely, but I do wonder how that life would compare in hindsight to regular family, time for socialising, regular holidays, etc. This is not really sport with NBA money at the end.

OldGuyInTheClub• 2 years ago

"If it's like you've described, why do it at all?"
He stared into space for a good few seconds, then responded:

"Glory."

The coach was a Klingon?

piuantiderp4• 2 years ago

What motivates you, comfort?

SamihaSingh• 2 years ago

Reminds of some of the essays on theplayerstribune.com - would highly recommend taking a look at the website for real stories of professional athletes.

sjducb• 2 years ago

This guy could have had so much fun travelling the world.

Sure he’s not got much status in the tennis community, but everyone else is impressed if you say you're 378th in the world. All he had to do was spend time with non tennis ppl in all of the amazing places he went to.

exodust2• 2 years ago

Well-written, at least he had writing to fall back on. There's a humour just under the surface in his reflections.

From Wikipedia: His pro career spanned 7 years from 2005-2012. He earned $247,686 in prize money. He made it to a few grand slams, even playing Novak at the US Open, although he retired from the match in the second set due to food poisoning!

scotteric• 2 years ago

$247,686 over 7 years is around $35,000 per year. After traveling expenses, hotel rooms, and equipment, how much of that is left over?

exodust2• 2 years ago

Not much. I wasn't suggesting it was a satisfying amount at all. But in terms of personal achievement, he should feel proud of qualifying for the grand slams and playing on the big stage, even if that moment was short-lived.

cryptica• 2 years ago

Very interesting reading that. The part about how ranking affect social interactions was particularly relatable for me.

In my case, I experienced this with cryptocurrency. I was a contributor/developer to a major crypto project (was once ranked top 10 in the world). At one point when the token price climbed from $1 to $7 (for no apparent reason), people came out of of the woodwork to talk to me and even offered to work for me for free... Then when the price dropped back down a few weeks later (also for no apparent reason), most people disappeared completely except one guy who kept in touch and I collaborated with later (he happened to know me from a different project I built).

It's weird how that works. But I guess tennis must feel lonely because it's closer to a meritocracy; if you fail, you can't dispute the score, it's your fault. There are enough matches that you can't really claim that you had unlucky pairings... Maybe a few times but what about the other 50 times? If you fail at tennis, it's close to truth to suggest that you're just not good enough. In speculative crypto investments and tech startups, there are no rules and you typically only get one meaningful make-or-break opportunity in your entire career and also there is an almost infinite number of variables. Most of these variables have nothing to do with you... So if you fail, it's probably some random investor's fault for dumping the token at a bad time or Elon started hyping up DogeCoin and so all the focus shifted towards memecoins away from your project... It's completely out of your control so there is nothing to beat yourself up about.

The loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player

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