Funding for Satellite Players??

[VictorS.]

I'm wondering, how do a lot of these satellite players go from country to country playing challengers and futures tourneys with so little prize money? Are many of these players sponsered? I think it's awesome that many of these guys are chasing their dreams playing the game of tennis. But I wonder how these guys can pay for these expensive airplane tickets.

 

[GrassCourtFan]

Out of their own pockets, out of the pockets of friends and family members willing to help out, and if they're lucky they woo one sponsor and get them to pay.

...or so I hear, haven't been in the situation and never will be, unfortunately. Anyone here have first-hand experience?

 

[joeman957]

Yep, I spent all of my money flying all over the world to play challenger events. Now I live in my tennis bag.

 

[West Coast Ace]

What Max G. said and three more words: credit card debt...

 

[VictorS.]

I was just wondering because I've been following a few guys who played tennis at my college (via atptennis.com), and they are heavily traveled challenger players going to places like indonesia, south america, india, europe, etc year-round. I think it's awesome that they are living out their dreams....I was wondering how they were doing this because the prize money is obviously not a lot and travel these days to places like asia and europe isn't exactly cheap.

 

[Geezer Guy]

I've talked to a guy, and he tells funny stories about how far they could make their prize money stretch between the occasional wins. They'd sleep half a dozen guys in one cheap hotel room, occasionally camp outdoors, accept a little money from home, pile as many people as possible into 1 player's car, etc. I don't remember them mentioning anything about being sponsored. He and a friend traveled together quite a bit and often played doubles together as well as singles. They did say that they had an arrangement where they agreed to split ANY prize money that EITHER earned, so they'ed have a better chance of having at least a little bit of money coming in if either one of them won anything.

After tramping the world for a couple of years, he settled down and became a teaching pro.

 

[Rob_C]

Victor, who are those guys that went to your college, if u dont mind me asking. There are a couple of guys that I used to play against years ago that graduated from college and are playing Futures & challengers and they're all over the place, Japan, Thailand, C. America.

I hope this comes out but a good site to follow results of the minor leagues is stevegtennis.com

later