jcgatennismom
Hall of Fame
If you add in 14 Challengers, the US had around 50 Futures/Challengers in 2016. The US does not have enough Futures for its own population, but collegiate players from all over the world play US Futures in the fall and early winter. How does Turkey pay prize $ for so many tourneys? If Turkey can afford and/or have the infrastructure for 50 Futures, why can't the US? I read an interesting inteview of Stephen Armitaj of USTA Director of Collegiate Tennis. Here is an interesting excerpt that partially explains why he thinks US tennis lags Europe
Are you done adding Collegiate Series Pro Circuit events, or do you still have a few more under consideration?
SA: If there's a university out there that wants to host these events and has the fundraising capabilities and it fits the schedule, we're definitely open to listening. No matter what anyone says, we're still at a 7-to-1 deficit in Futures against Europe, we're still a 3-to-1 deficit in Challengers against Europe, and we're at a 2 1/2-to-1 deficit on the girls side. When you look at the top 200 in the rankings and there's a lot more European players than ours, that's why.
The players who come out of school with no professional ranking and no funding, they start that same $75,000 process from scratch. So they're structurally getting killed because there are less points in the marketplace. That's where college tennis has really gotten hurt in my opinion.
Four nights in hotel, if you're in qualies, then you win one match and it's five nights of hotel and you now have $250 bucks coming in. How do you do this? So when people are wondering why college tennis hasn't done better, or historically, or in the lull between 1995 and 2010, this is why. Pro Circuit events shot up everywhere else and there was a structural deficit where we were at. When you add the lack of points in the marketplace combined with the cost of doing it, it's just really hard.
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We know some guys with a few ATP points but they earned them in Asia, Africa, Egypt, Turkey etc. Each US Futures has over 400 applicants for 32 MD spots and 64-128 Qualies ( however because players can register for up to 6 events the same week, usually there are byes in the 128 Qs). Players can go deep in a couple of Futures but still have to go through Qualis unless they get a WC because there are so many current college players, grads, young pros, and even top juniors trying to play those tournaments. Conversely we know a 4 star junior who flew overseas and was able to get in a couple Futures, maybe won one Q match, but a lot shorter applicant list than in US. Same thing for junior ITFs-tons more in other countries and only a handful in US. In US we supply the colleges, everywhere else they supply the entry level pro tourneys.
Are you done adding Collegiate Series Pro Circuit events, or do you still have a few more under consideration?
SA: If there's a university out there that wants to host these events and has the fundraising capabilities and it fits the schedule, we're definitely open to listening. No matter what anyone says, we're still at a 7-to-1 deficit in Futures against Europe, we're still a 3-to-1 deficit in Challengers against Europe, and we're at a 2 1/2-to-1 deficit on the girls side. When you look at the top 200 in the rankings and there's a lot more European players than ours, that's why.
The players who come out of school with no professional ranking and no funding, they start that same $75,000 process from scratch. So they're structurally getting killed because there are less points in the marketplace. That's where college tennis has really gotten hurt in my opinion.
Four nights in hotel, if you're in qualies, then you win one match and it's five nights of hotel and you now have $250 bucks coming in. How do you do this? So when people are wondering why college tennis hasn't done better, or historically, or in the lull between 1995 and 2010, this is why. Pro Circuit events shot up everywhere else and there was a structural deficit where we were at. When you add the lack of points in the marketplace combined with the cost of doing it, it's just really hard.
_____________________________________________________
We know some guys with a few ATP points but they earned them in Asia, Africa, Egypt, Turkey etc. Each US Futures has over 400 applicants for 32 MD spots and 64-128 Qualies ( however because players can register for up to 6 events the same week, usually there are byes in the 128 Qs). Players can go deep in a couple of Futures but still have to go through Qualis unless they get a WC because there are so many current college players, grads, young pros, and even top juniors trying to play those tournaments. Conversely we know a 4 star junior who flew overseas and was able to get in a couple Futures, maybe won one Q match, but a lot shorter applicant list than in US. Same thing for junior ITFs-tons more in other countries and only a handful in US. In US we supply the colleges, everywhere else they supply the entry level pro tourneys.
