College players in US summer Futures and Challengers

bobleenov1963

Hall of Fame
oh man, bob isn’t going to like this post either

was only a couple months ago I had to take it upon myself to post a few photos of some of the mega-obese that have succeeded on the PGA tour, in response to his comments about how poorly understood the physical demands of golf are

Rory McIlroy and Koepka are super fit and they play golf. They each won 4 majors. Riffice is fit too but he got taken to school by baby Fed.

My point is that golfers make infinitely more than tennis players. LIV Golf is just increasing the golf money pool. LIV Golf does have some bums playing too. They guy who won last week won 4.5 million

The PGA just can't compete with LIV Golf which is funded by unlimited pocket of the Saudi Public Investment Fund Oil money.
 

mikej

Hall of Fame
Rory McIlroy and Koepka are super fit and they play golf. They each won 4 majors. Riffice is fit too but he got taken to school by baby Fed.

no one arguing that you cannot be fit and play golf

it’s just not an absolute requirement

find me professional soccer or tennis players that looks like John Daly or Haley Moore and we’ll talk
 

mikej

Hall of Fame

I’ll leave it to the audience to decide if there’s any comparison between their build / agility / etc and that of Haley Moore

SPT-LPGA04-2.jpg
 
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mikej

Hall of Fame
And putting a photo of Townsend in there to compare to Daly / Moore is a joke

Townsend is agile enough to have found success as a serve and volleyer - think Daly and Moore are physically capable (if they were suddenly gifted racquet skills) of crashing the net and fending off passing shots for three sets to upset Halep?


rather, are they capable of doing a single pull-up?
 
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Wild Card

Rookie

andfor

Legend
Ryan has interest from the British papers nice write up from a local one linked:
Might be my PC, likely user error, but I can't open the article. Ryan's movement has been world class and an above average problem solver to me since I first saw him play. I think he's pretty strict about his diet as well. The strength he's added is a huge factor to his success. Couldn't happen to a nicer player!
 

silentkman

Hall of Fame
Rory McIlroy and Koepka are super fit and they play golf. They each won 4 majors. Riffice is fit too but he got taken to school by baby Fed.



The PGA just can't compete with LIV Golf which is funded by unlimited pocket of the Saudi Public Investment Fund Oil money.


Everyone and I mean Everyone knows who is funding the LIV golf tour. That's the problem. This Saudi guy has his hands everywhere.
 
Getting back to college tennis. Good performances in San Diego by current BullDawg Ethan Quinn...and fall 2023 Dawg recruit Alex Michelsen. One of them will probably face NCAA runnerup August Holmgren in the finals.
 

bobleenov1963

Hall of Fame
Everyone and I mean Everyone knows who is funding the LIV golf tour. That's the problem. This Saudi guy has his hands everywhere.

Why is anyone having problems with the Saudi LIV golf money but has no problem filling up their SUV gas tank with oil from the Saudi? Yet at the same time, communist china is killing minority Muslisms in china and the NBA has no issue doing business in china. Furthermore, Joe Biden is planning a trip to Saudi Arabia begging MBS to pump more oil but I am not seeing any outrage from anyone. Complete B.S.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
Chidekh of Washington and Draxl of KY will play in Wichita finals tomo. The other 3 KY players lost in 1st rd MD (Diallo to Chidekh). Riffice lost in 2nd row as did Mitsui of Tenn (SF in Lansing) who lost to guy Draxl beat today. Kansas native and Arizona player Murphy Cassone lost to Chidekh in 2nd round. Been a good week for Chidekh as he won all his matches in straights except for his 1st rd 3 setter vs Diallo.
 

andfor

Legend
Why is anyone having problems with the Saudi LIV golf money but has no problem filling up their SUV gas tank with oil from the Saudi? Yet at the same time, communist china is killing minority Muslisms in china and the NBA has no issue doing business in china. Furthermore, Joe Biden is planning a trip to Saudi Arabia begging MBS to pump more oil but I am not seeing any outrage from anyone. Complete B.S.
Saudi's refining and supplying oil products is an issue that goes back a long way, could be solved here in the US but blocked by ideological money grabbing politicians. Might want to give yourself a history lesson instead of trying give moral superiority lessons rooted in ignorance. In the meantime there's more folks than you know who don't buy Nike's, avoid purchasing products made in China or watch the NBA, but not everyone has to self-promote and boost their ego by virtue signaling to the world.
 

Sureshot

Hall of Fame
Good win for OSU rising sophomore Anthrop over ND/UF transferee Axel Nefve in straight sets at the 15k in South Bend. And the OSU freshman Bernard is running Vale close. Makes one wonder whether these elite juniors along with Quinn, Michelsen, Zheng et al are going to hit the ground running and have an immediate impact in college
 

Sureshot

Hall of Fame
Apologies for the digression (again) but Koepka following DJ, Patrick Reed and DeChambeau to the LIV golf tour has to be very concerning to the PGA. These are the stars of today. South African Charle Schwartzel just collected $4.75mil for four days of work last week at the inaugural event!
 
Good win for OSU rising sophomore Anthrop over ND/UF transferee Axel Nefve in straight sets at the 15k in South Bend. And the OSU freshman Bernard is running Vale close. Makes one wonder whether these elite juniors along with Quinn, Michelsen, Zheng et al are going to hit the ground running and have an immediate impact in college
yes.....definitely on Ethan Quinn....In March, Quinn defeated Baylor former number 1 Julian Lenz 7-5,6-1 (Lenz was around 285 in the world at the time).
Quinn just defeated the NCAA singles runnerup. Michelsen will only be a high school senior. He has an incredible game. In the San Diego futures tourney, Michelsen was up 3-0 in the 3rd set in 3rd set against Quinn and Quinn was down 0-3 and 15-40 on his serve
I think that Anthrop was similar to Quinn. They both started college a semester early and they both redshirted in the spring. Anthrop will be a freshman for Ohio State this year.
 

andfor

Legend
Peniston (U of Memphis) picks up 1st rd. win today, faces Steve Johnson in rd. 2. Also from Memphis, Catherine Harrison (UCLA alum) picks up 1st rd. win. Have not scanned both draws for additional former college players Wimbledon results.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
Peniston (U of Memphis) picks up 1st rd. win today, faces Steve Johnson in rd. 2. Also from Memphis, Catherine Harrison (UCLA alum) picks up 1st rd. win. Have not scanned both draws for additional former college players Wimbledon results.
Giron (UCLA) beat 24 seed Rune.
 

Sureshot

Hall of Fame
phenomenal day for UCLA mens tennis
as noted, Giron destroyed Rune in 3 straight sets
Cressy was phenomenal in defeating Felix Augur Aliassime
Mackie McDonald won in straight sets over 2019 NCAA singles finalist Nuno Borges
Looks like college tennis is becoming an even more viable route to the Tour
 

andfor

Legend
Looks like college tennis is becoming an even more viable route to the Tour
This week it sure does. Even the last few weeks we've seen some good college player results.

With the average age of the top 100 pro player being around 28 or so for the last 10+ years, unless the player has funding secured or is the rare talent exception, college tennis first has made sense for a long time.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
phenomenal day for UCLA mens tennis
as noted, Giron destroyed Rune in 3 straight sets
Cressy was phenomenal in defeating Felix Augur Aliassime
Mackie McDonald won in straight sets over 2019 NCAA singles finalist Nuno Borges
Ironic that in the year UCLA for the 1st time did not make the team NCAAs, multiple alumni have won in the 1st rounds of a Grand Slam. Outside of slams, Govind Nanda (ATP 453, CH 382) who played 3 years at UCLA won the Tulsa 25K this summer (won 3 other titles between 19 and 21) and Keegan Smith (17/18-20/21) overcame a life threatening skateboarding accident in April of 21 to reach a career ATP high of 352 this June. Keegan has played his best tennis in Mexico winning a future title in Cancun this year and reaching the QFs of a Challenger. With this level of success, I guess it is hard for UCLA to keep its best players 4 years, let alone a 5th! Evan Zhu is another UCLA player (16/17, 17/18) that left early-after his soph year; at 23 and with an ATP ranking of 387, he might have benefited from staying longer at UCLA before turning pro. Gage Brymer (27) ATP who has won one overseas Future title this year rounds out the 7 UCLA former players ranked in the ATP top 500. Gage lost to Holmgren this summer in the finals of Rancho Sante Fe.
 

Wild Card

Rookie
Looks like college tennis is becoming an even more viable route to the Tour

As seen throughout the 2022 season, college tennis has proven once again to be a pathway to the professional tour as 69 players with college ties are set to compete in either the Singles or Doubles Main Draw at Wimbledon.

 

Sureshot

Hall of Fame
Ironic that in the year UCLA for the 1st time did not make the team NCAAs, multiple alumni have won in the 1st rounds of a Grand Slam. Outside of slams, Govind Nanda (ATP 453, CH 382) who played 3 years at UCLA won the Tulsa 25K this summer (won 3 other titles between 19 and 21) and Keegan Smith (17/18-20/21) overcame a life threatening skateboarding accident in April of 21 to reach a career ATP high of 352 this June. Keegan has played his best tennis in Mexico winning a future title in Cancun this year and reaching the QFs of a Challenger. With this level of success, I guess it is hard for UCLA to keep its best players 4 years, let alone a 5th! Evan Zhu is another UCLA player (16/17, 17/18) that left early-after his soph year; at 23 and with an ATP ranking of 387, he might have benefited from staying longer at UCLA before turning pro. Gage Brymer (27) ATP who has won one overseas Future title this year rounds out the 7 UCLA former players ranked in the ATP top 500. Gage lost to Holmgren this summer in the finals of Rancho Sante Fe.
Billy Martin was a magnet for top tier talent but I wonder if his age is now getting in the way. He’s 65. Maybe he doesn’t care as much or can’t be as involved as he used to be
 

silentkman

Hall of Fame
Ironic that in the year UCLA for the 1st time did not make the team NCAAs, multiple alumni have won in the 1st rounds of a Grand Slam. Outside of slams, Govind Nanda (ATP 453, CH 382) who played 3 years at UCLA won the Tulsa 25K this summer (won 3 other titles between 19 and 21) and Keegan Smith (17/18-20/21) overcame a life threatening skateboarding accident in April of 21 to reach a career ATP high of 352 this June. Keegan has played his best tennis in Mexico winning a future title in Cancun this year and reaching the QFs of a Challenger. With this level of success, I guess it is hard for UCLA to keep its best players 4 years, let alone a 5th! Evan Zhu is another UCLA player (16/17, 17/18) that left early-after his soph year; at 23 and with an ATP ranking of 387, he might have benefited from staying longer at UCLA before turning pro. Gage Brymer (27) ATP who has won one overseas Future title this year rounds out the 7 UCLA former players ranked in the ATP top 500. Gage lost to Holmgren this summer in the finals of Rancho Sante Fe.

what's your view as to constitutes an solid pro career? I think to be in top 100 for a extended period of time. You can't make a living playing challengers.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
what's your view as to constitutes an solid pro career? I think to be in top 100 for a extended period of time. You can't make a living playing challengers.
The best college players are 400-600 before they leave college. The truly talented ones should get to under 200 I would think in 2 years unless injured (3 years for those in these pandemic years). Even with a pandemic and an injury, Wolf who left college in May '19 is in low 100s. Kovacevic in 1 year out of college is just inside 300s. Of course Nakishima skyrocketed quickly-I dont count Brooksby as college player since he never actually played a match for Baylor. Cam Norrie left TCU after his jr year of college in 2016; he was around 200 in '17 and inside top 100 in mid '18 2 years after leaving TCU. I would hope after 3 years if players arent in top 100 or close they would reevaluate unless they have wealthy parents or sponsors still willing to pay. I assume some players go in and out of coaching, playing prize $ etc to fund pro journey and so could take longer than 3 years. I think it is even trickier for pros on the way down. It is sad to see guys that once played in MD slams now playing Futures, e.g Donald Young. He has had years to come up with his next career. The UTR PTT tour is a great way for players who can not devote 100% to pro tour to earn some $ and stay in the game or do pro tour part-time or seasonally. Win two in a row in same city-make $7200 in 2 weeks-not a bad deal for winning 6 matches each week if you have a free place to stay. Not as hard as Futures, same level of $ then players use $ to fund Future travel. Now if players are young and single willing to get by with a mix of coaching, prize $, and ATP/Challenger/Future tour, then if they want to drag out the process 5-6 years, that's their choice. However if they are 28, not in the top 100, I hope they have an alternate plan.

Locally there were some coaches had career highs of ATP 25-50, had played Grand Slams. Nice guys, great coaches but still had to move from club to club or even to another city when clubs changed management. They got to make a career out of tennis but it wasnt easy. I hope most college players take their degree seriously, give the tour several years, and then have a place to land if it doesnt work out. Unless someone is top 10 for a number of years and wisely invests earnings or gets a job with Tennis Channel, there is a good chance they will either spend the rest of their life coaching or need another career.
 

andfor

Legend
I recall a story from years ago when son of HOF'er Fred Stolle, Sandon Stolle TCU considered turning pro around 1990-91. Sandon said his dad's idea of a good time to turn pro and leave college would be if he could get into the top 250. That was a long time ago and maybe that rule of thumb was for his his kid.

Hope my recollection of story is close to accurate and wonder what Fred would say to that question today. Anyways, always remembered that and found it of interest around this subject.
 

silentkman

Hall of Fame
The best college players are 400-600 before they leave college. The truly talented ones should get to under 200 I would think in 2 years unless injured (3 years for those in these pandemic years). Even with a pandemic and an injury, Wolf who left college in May '19 is in low 100s. Kovacevic in 1 year out of college is just inside 300s. Of course Nakishima skyrocketed quickly-I dont count Brooksby as college player since he never actually played a match for Baylor. Cam Norrie left TCU after his jr year of college in 2016; he was around 200 in '17 and inside top 100 in mid '18 2 years after leaving TCU. I would hope after 3 years if players arent in top 100 or close they would reevaluate unless they have wealthy parents or sponsors still willing to pay. I assume some players go in and out of coaching, playing prize $ etc to fund pro journey and so could take longer than 3 years. I think it is even trickier for pros on the way down. It is sad to see guys that once played in MD slams now playing Futures, e.g Donald Young. He has had years to come up with his next career. The UTR PTT tour is a great way for players who can not devote 100% to pro tour to earn some $ and stay in the game or do pro tour part-time or seasonally. Win two in a row in same city-make $7200 in 2 weeks-not a bad deal for winning 6 matches each week if you have a free place to stay. Not as hard as Futures, same level of $ then players use $ to fund Future travel. Now if players are young and single willing to get by with a mix of coaching, prize $, and ATP/Challenger/Future tour, then if they want to drag out the process 5-6 years, that's their choice. However if they are 28, not in the top 100, I hope they have an alternate plan.

Locally there were some coaches had career highs of ATP 25-50, had played Grand Slams. Nice guys, great coaches but still had to move from club to club or even to another city when clubs changed management. They got to make a career out of tennis but it wasnt easy. I hope most college players take their degree seriously, give the tour several years, and then have a place to land if it doesnt work out. Unless someone is top 10 for a number of years and wisely invests earnings or gets a job with Tennis Channel, there is a good chance they will either spend the rest of their life coaching or need another career.
The best college players are 400-600 before they leave college. The truly talented ones should get to under 200 I would think in 2 years unless injured (3 years for those in these pandemic years). Even with a pandemic and an injury, Wolf who left college in May '19 is in low 100s. Kovacevic in 1 year out of college is just inside 300s. Of course Nakishima skyrocketed quickly-I dont count Brooksby as college player since he never actually played a match for Baylor. Cam Norrie left TCU after his jr year of college in 2016; he was around 200 in '17 and inside top 100 in mid '18 2 years after leaving TCU. I would hope after 3 years if players arent in top 100 or close they would reevaluate unless they have wealthy parents or sponsors still willing to pay. I assume some players go in and out of coaching, playing prize $ etc to fund pro journey and so could take longer than 3 years. I think it is even trickier for pros on the way down. It is sad to see guys that once played in MD slams now playing Futures, e.g Donald Young. He has had years to come up with his next career. The UTR PTT tour is a great way for players who can not devote 100% to pro tour to earn some $ and stay in the game or do pro tour part-time or seasonally. Win two in a row in same city-make $7200 in 2 weeks-not a bad deal for winning 6 matches each week if you have a free place to stay. Not as hard as Futures, same level of $ then players use $ to fund Future travel. Now if players are young and single willing to get by with a mix of coaching, prize $, and ATP/Challenger/Future tour, then if they want to drag out the process 5-6 years, that's their choice. However if they are 28, not in the top 100, I hope they have an alternate plan.

Locally there were some coaches had career highs of ATP 25-50, had played Grand Slams. Nice guys, great coaches but still had to move from club to club or even to another city when clubs changed management. They got to make a career out of tennis but it wasnt easy. I hope most college players take their degree seriously, give the tour several years, and then have a place to land if it doesnt work out. Unless someone is top 10 for a number of years and wisely invests earnings or gets a job with Tennis Channel, there is a good chance they will either spend the rest of their life coaching or need another career.

I don't think most players have a free play to stay while on the tour. I know some players will bunk at a family's house. That doesn't sound like a professional to me. Hotels can be expensive, hopefully more tournaments will provide hotels to the players. A player who won the NCAA's has made 74K on the tour since turning pro in 2019. The president of the ATP seems to have no regard for the lower levels of tennis.
 

Wild Card

Rookie
Brit Paul Jubb has won $170k since turning pro. He is also funded by the LTA, allegedly ~$60k a year, plus any sponsorship deals he has.

 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
I don't think most players have a free play to stay while on the tour. I know some players will bunk at a family's house. That doesn't sound like a professional to me. Hotels can be expensive, hopefully more tournaments will provide hotels to the players. A player who won the NCAA's has made 74K on the tour since turning pro in 2019. The president of the ATP seems to have no regard for the lower levels of tennis.
I didnt mean players had free places to stay on tour. I meant that players who wanted to earn $ to fund Tour expenses can choose to play prize $ events, UTT PTR events, etc where they know someone to stay with. So if they earn $$ at an event, their only expenses might be gas. I have hosted players who played UTR PTT events. Now the guys who are 400-600 should play FT post college to get to 200 and lower but there are a lot of PT players-guys who live cheap and coach FT for a half a year and then travel the world playing Futures for 3-6 months. Now Cancun is a popular spot with 18 Futures in 2022. There may be guys playing the summer prize $ and PTTs to fund their Cancun swing in August/Sept-7 tourneys over 8 weeks. All those are just $15Ks so the better collegians will aim for the 25Ks with more ranking points. However a lot of top collegians are playing this summer's So Cal swing and those are just $15Ks too but So Cal is a good base. Cheaper when players can stay in one spot and play multiple weeks. At least if collegians go to So Cal or Cancun and lose early, they have plenty of stuff to do between events...
 

andfor

Legend
Brit Paul Jubb has won $170k since turning pro. He is also funded by the LTA, allegedly ~$60k a year, plus any sponsorship deals he has.

He has had a few injuries on and off. I believe the LTA also matches prize money for certain players at the futures and challenger levels.
 

silentkman

Hall of Fame
I didnt mean players had free places to stay on tour. I meant that players who wanted to earn $ to fund Tour expenses can choose to play prize $ events, UTT PTR events, etc where they know someone to stay with. So if they earn $$ at an event, their only expenses might be gas. I have hosted players who played UTR PTT events. Now the guys who are 400-600 should play FT post college to get to 200 and lower but there are a lot of PT players-guys who live cheap and coach FT for a half a year and then travel the world playing Futures for 3-6 months. Now Cancun is a popular spot with 18 Futures in 2022. There may be guys playing the summer prize $ and PTTs to fund their Cancun swing in August/Sept-7 tourneys over 8 weeks. All those are just $15Ks so the better collegians will aim for the 25Ks with more ranking points. However a lot of top collegians are playing this summer's So Cal swing and those are just $15Ks too but So Cal is a good base. Cheaper when players can stay in one spot and play multiple weeks. At least if collegians go to So Cal or Cancun and lose early, they have plenty of stuff to do between events...
I'm frustrated that most players are not making any money. The winners purse is roughly about 18% of the total amount. I'm glad the are having multiple tournaments in one place. I'm intrigue by the financials and if you make a profit having a 25K tournament anywhere. Thanks again for the info. I need to scoured the ITF website more closely.
 

bobleenov1963

Hall of Fame
Now the guys who are 400-600 should play FT post college to get to 200 and lower but there are a lot of PT players-guys who live cheap and coach FT for a half a year and then travel the world playing Futures for 3-6 months. .

How much do you typical make coaching tennis FT for half a year? Teaching tennis is hard and you will not have much time to work on improving your own game. A better approach, I think, would be working in some high paying consulting IT jobs for half a year and then take off to play tennis the other half of the year. That way, you rarely work a full 8 hours and will not be physically tired at the end of the day to work on your own game. With this, you can stay in nice hotel, have good meal and be ready to compete on the tennis courts

Now Cancun is a popular spot with 18 Futures in 2022. There may be guys playing the summer prize $ and PTTs to fund their Cancun swing in August/Sept-7 tourneys over 8 weeks. All those are just $15Ks so the better collegians will aim for the 25Ks with more ranking points. However a lot of top collegians are playing this summer's So Cal swing and those are just $15Ks too but So Cal is a good base. Cheaper when players can stay in one spot and play multiple weeks. At least if collegians go to So Cal or Cancun and lose early, they have plenty of stuff to do between events...

Those stuffs in Cancun between events also cost $$$.
 

Wild Card

Rookie
Many of these player have recently finished college, have never had time to intern and have no experience in that role. How are they going to walk into “some high paying consulting IT job”? Sure there would be plenty of takers if you have vacancies……
 
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bobleenov1963

Hall of Fame
Many of these player have recently finished college, have never had time to intern and have no experience in that role. How are they going to walk into “some high paying consulting IT job”? Sure there would be plenty of takers if you have vacancies……

Those players have alumni connections that help them get good high paying jobs that you and I can only dream about. If that doesn't happen, maybe they shouldn't be playing tennis in the first place because they don't know how to use those connections. My employer just recently hired a recently graduated D1 player and gave him a title of Project Management even though he had no experience of managing IT projects but it really doesn't matter. He got the job because one of the EVPs is an athletic booster at the university. He got paid a cool $130K/year and got the summer and fall off to play on the challengers circuit.
 

JW10S

Hall of Fame
Now the guys who are 400-600 should play FT post college to get to 200 and lower but there are a lot of PT players-guys who live cheap and coach FT for a half a year and then travel the world playing Futures for 3-6 months.
Actually this doesn't happen all that often and is even more rarely successful. Because while the players are coaching FT the other players are training and competing FT so the players that are coaching are slowly losing ground on their competitors. I speak from experience...
 

atatu

Legend
Curious if anyone has seen Bryce Nakashima play, he qualified in LA but lost in the first round.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
Those players have alumni connections that help them get good high paying jobs that you and I can only dream about. If that doesn't happen, maybe they shouldn't be playing tennis in the first place because they don't know how to use those connections. My employer just recently hired a recently graduated D1 player and gave him a title of Project Management even though he had no experience of managing IT projects but it really doesn't matter. He got the job because one of the EVPs is an athletic booster at the university. He got paid a cool $130K/year and got the summer and fall off to play on the challengers circuit.
I bet the other guys on the project manager's team will love doing all the work for him... I do think with all the SaaS on the cloud, there will be opportunities possibly for athletes who've been trained in software to work remote while playing some tourneys but to start as PM without even knowing the stuff? If he does well on the challengers circuit, he probably wont show up in January. I know you are from DMV and UVA has a great booster club for tennis. However, many of those guys who love tennis dont last a year or two at a desk job. Jarmere Jenkins UVA grad worked a couple months as an investment consultant with Vanguard between his pro career then private coaching/hitting parter for Serena. Know another college player who was a top business grad, 3.9-4.0, had a great finance job-quit it after a year or so to coach and play the occasional prize $ tourney.

As far as IT and tennis, there was a former collegiate player about 5 years out of D1 (dual MIS/Mktg major, high honors) who had worked as a software developer on a team for 3 years and then as a certified consultant for that software for a year. Before he started his software job, he'd taught English in South America, worked with the Peace Corps, and improved his game hitting with high level locals. After 4 years of work in the States, working with local pros, and playing with the few D1 alumni in his city, he decided to move to a more tennis-centric city, work on his game, play some prize $ and wild card tournaments. He did improve his UTR almost 1.5 (almost 1.0 higher than when he graduated college) but last I heard, instead of doing remote software consulting, he was cleaning Air Bnbs. He had two 6 month stay in the tennis hot spot before he returned to his base city for a regular job. Maybe it was just the wrong software-wasnt one of the biggest names.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
is this supposed to be appealing if you trying to make as a pro? this sounds perfect if you don't tennis seriously.
Just giving Bob a hard time. Obviously not the way to live for the serious player, but for a group of recent grads (or current collegians) who want so spend a summer trying the tour and mainly playing Future Qualis on the cheap before starting their real job or returning to school, 7 weeks in Cancun could be fun. Now there are some serious current or former collegians signed up for the Cancun tourneys in July-Seelig, Soto, Bicknell and even Nostradamus' favorite rising freshman Banerjee. I expect those guys to spend more time on court than on the sand...
 
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jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
Actually this doesn't happen all that often and is even more rarely successful. Because while the players are coaching FT the other players are training and competing FT so the players that are coaching are slowly losing ground on their competitors. I speak from experience...
Just wonder how all the guys fund a full year. Some internationals may have federation support, some players may have support from parents and/or boosters, but with most losing $60-100K their 1st year on the tour, some talented players may not be able to afford to play FT. I dont think the USTA gives that much support to collegians/recent grads-sounds like mainly in the summer. Wish there was transparency on how much USTA support young pros-collegiate or otherwise receive. Too much budget goes to bureaucracy-they ought to give more funds to promising collegians. It's worse this year with gas and flights so high; I hope all the players flying to Futures this summer make it to tourneys on time-lots of flight cancellations and delays.

These last couple of years have been crazy for players on the tour. In 2019, the ATP took points away from most of the Futures (replacing them with iTF world points), and then gave them back in August 2019 (ITF points still earned for some Quali wins). Then the pandemic hit, and most 2020 tourneys were cut. Players are still getting into 2022 tourneys with points earned in 2019 though those are gradually dropping off. You can look at ranking lists and some players are dropping 300 spots. In this interval, it is possible that a player who was based near his college town and still playing with high level former teammates could keep up his level playing PT? Now as the ranking system returns to being based on only 12 months of results, players probably will need to play most of the year with few breaks. Do you think a US player could possibly reach top 100 only playing HCs and skipping grass and clay? I think all the US summer tourneys except for Pittsburgh are HC. How hard is it for college players, esp US players who didnt play much clay in juniors to do well at Clay Futures? In college I think only the Milwaukee tournament is on clay (alternating year between hard and clay for women and men) and the Dick Vitale college clay tourney in Fl (if it is still held in fall). Now the Florida players are usually great on clay-dont know about the rest.
 

silentkman

Hall of Fame
Just wonder how all the guys fund a full year. Some internationals may have federation support, some players may have support from parents and/or boosters, but with most losing $60-100K their 1st year on the tour, some talented players may not be able to afford to play FT. I dont think the USTA gives that much support to collegians/recent grads-sounds like mainly in the summer. Wish there was transparency on how much USTA support young pros-collegiate or otherwise receive. Too much budget goes to bureaucracy-they ought to give more funds to promising collegians. It's worse this year with gas and flights so high; I hope all the players flying to Futures this summer make it to tourneys on time-lots of flight cancellations and delays.

These last couple of years have been crazy for players on the tour. In 2019, the ATP took points away from most of the Futures (replacing them with iTF world points), and then gave them back in August 2019 (ITF points still earned for some Quali wins). Then the pandemic hit, and most 2020 tourneys were cut. Players are still getting into 2022 tourneys with points earned in 2019 though those are gradually dropping off. You can look at ranking lists and some players are dropping 300 spots. In this interval, it is possible that a player who was based near his college town and still playing with high level former teammates could keep up his level playing PT? Now as the ranking system returns to being based on only 12 months of results, players probably will need to play most of the year with few breaks. Do you think a US player could possibly reach top 100 only playing HCs and skipping grass and clay? I think all the US summer tourneys except for Pittsburgh are HC. How hard is it for college players, esp US players who didnt play much clay in juniors to do well at Clay Futures? In college I think only the Milwaukee tournament is on clay (alternating year between hard and clay for women and men) and the Dick Vitale college clay tourney in Fl (if it is still held in fall). Now the Florida players are usually great on clay-dont know about the rest.

That's the problem in a nutshell with lower rungs of tennis. it's really not a viable career. This won't change with the current leadership at the ATP.
 

jcgatennismom

Hall of Fame
Many of these player have recently finished college, have never had time to intern and have no experience in that role. How are they going to walk into “some high paying consulting IT job”? Sure there would be plenty of takers if you have vacancies……
I am amazed at how many tennis players just play or coach tennis during the summer. Coaching tennis may pay twice the going rate of internships, but those internships pay off after graduation. While college coaches will allow tennis players to miss occasional practices for a job interview, it is hard for tennis players at universities without a tennis booster club to make career connections. Even if the university has in depth career services, college players usually dont have time to attend multiple career events (maybe 1-2 career fairs a year) or join the career related associations who invite local business people to meetings. Any parents of recruits look at past year tennis rosters for universities of interest and check linked in profiles for guys/gals who graduated 2-3 years ago to compare career trajectories. I am also surprised how few athletes have linked in profiles by their junior year; one year my son was offered an internship he had not applied for when a company directly reached out to him via linkedin, offered him an interview, and then the job a few weeks later. Much better than the years he filled out 75 applications to get 5 interviews...

Another issue is because athletes' registration is handled by athletic advisors who make sure they are eligible to play and on track for graduation, players may think they dont need to talk to advisors within their major/academic school. We know athletes who graduated magna cum laude who have no interest in working in their major-by the time they realized they weren't interested in their field, it was too late to change without adding a year+ to school. At least with the extra pandemic year, some players were able to earn a minor or a certificate in another course of study.
 
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