Emily Webley-Smith and Others

Elnino · Newbie

Emily Webley-Smith and Others

Spectator · All-time great

If everyone matured at the same speed, saying that people shouldn't be able to make a living at the Futures level might make some sense. But they don't. And as the average age of players "making it" and the physicality of the game increases, there needs to be much more attention to the lower levels.

Like many on this board (referring to discussions in past years), I think the ITF, LTA et al are missing a huge opportunity with Futures matches. They offer great possibilities for outreach to fans, building up the grassroots, getting youngsters interested etc that just aren't being taken up by most tournaments at all. If one stopped seeing ITFs primarily as feeders for the ATP or for their value in points and started to think about them as building up tennis generally, everyone could benefit.

-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 8th of July 2013 04:14:02 PM

Elnino · Newbie

Before I start I do not want to cause any offence or target Webley-Smith (She is the case study for my question here more than anything!).

I enjoy following tennis reasonably closely but I wanted to come on here to find out a little bit more and get some questions answered.

Webley-Smith started playing on the ITF ciricuit in 2000 so has been a pro for 13 years. In this time she has amassed just $187,000 in prize money. Now in my eyes I do not understand how someone can justify being a professional when in 13 years they are earning on average just $14,000 a year (not far more than minimum wage). How can someone earning this prize money afford to bankroll themselves to fly to far flung locations for ITF and qualifiers, stay in hotels, eat and so on. My question is does the money come from the LTA, or do some of these players exist as 'pros' simply because they are from wealthy families that can afford to help them live a life as a professional that their results and prize money are not justifying?

To me if you have only earnt this much money in over a decade it would suggest you are not good enough to justify a living from the sport?

PaulM · Tennis legend

I'd be surprised if Em gets any LTA funding at all.

Whether she has family wealth or private sponsors I don't know (and not sure it's my business) but generally any tennis player (from any country) will need one or both to keep going.

Em has also spent very large periods out with injury, so her actual 'time' on circuit is way less than 13 years.

Shhh · Challenger level

We really wouldn't know how the player survives Elnino. Some do have wealthy parents, others could have sponsorship but I think most get very creative in learning how to survive on little. There may be a some other limited earning opportunities they can fit in around there careers, overdrafts, a little help from LTA...........I would guess a whole muddle of things. To have the chance to be a pro tennis player in your early 20's is a great experience and I guess its hard to give up when you still have the dream in your head even if thats highly unlikely from the outside.

Peter too · Tennis legend

The problem is that prize money for women at the lower levels has not been increased for decades. Players at the top can earn millions but that does little to provide a living for British women outside the top 100. It's not unusual for 40 or 50 British players to put their name down for home tournaments but you will only occasionally see them competing abroad. If we want to encourage more people to enter the sport the ITF should start by increasing the payout for $10K tournaments to $15K.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Elnino wrote:
Before I start I do not want to cause any offence or target Webley-Smith (She is the case study for my question here more than anything!).
I enjoy following tennis reasonably closely but I wanted to come on here to find out a little bit more and get some questions answered.
Webley-Smith started playing on the ITF ciricuit in 2000 so has been a pro for 13 years. In this time she has amassed just $187,000 in prize money. Now in my eyes I do not understand how someone can justify being a professional when in 13 years they are earning on average just $14,000 a year (not far more than minimum wage). How can someone earning this prize money afford to bankroll themselves to fly to far flung locations for ITF and qualifiers, stay in hotels, eat and so on. My question is does the money come from the LTA, or do some of these players exist as 'pros' simply because they are from wealthy families that can afford to help them live a life as a professional that their results and prize money are not justifying?
To me if you have only earnt this much money in over a decade it would suggest you are not good enough to justify a living from the sport?

You know, I may be wrong here, but maybe she just loves playing tennis. And if she has the financial means to do so from other sources, good luck to her (or anyone else in her position).

philwrig · Hall of fame

Emily has a huge passion for tennis, and when you have that you find ways to survive financially etc., If you ever get a chance to speak to Emily you'll find one of the most delightful and interesting personalities on the tour and I don't doubt she will play for many more years to come, assuming she retains her huge love for what she does.

Spectator · All-time great

Beat me to it, BiS. And if I were as good as she is at what she does, I'd go for it, too (though trying to keep my flying miles down). She's clearly a bright woman - plenty of time to do other things later, and in the meantime, what an opportunity!

I loved what Jonny Marray said last year when people asked why he hadn't given up after years of dubious finances. He wanted to do what he thought he was capable of doing.

Peter too · Tennis legend

If I remember rightly around 2010-11 Emily helped pay for a few weeks in India by making a deal with the hotel owner, she gave him some tennis lessons in return for low cost accommodation. It looks to have been quite a rewarding few weeks, picking up 35 ranking points and a couple of thousand dollars with low living expenses.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Sarah Borwell used to have a brilliant blog but its sadly down. You might be able to find the odd post which was copy and pasted in full onto another site, but it went down very well with fans of the challenger circuit and gained her lots of respect and new fans around the world. Megan Moulton-Levy's is still up but has not been updated for a while.

Sarah used to say she had kept lots of stuff over the years with the intention of one day doing a book, but whether or not that will happen, particularly now she is successful with Tennis Smart is anyone's guess.

korriban · Challenger level

Prizemoney levels, costs/expenses and funding are very difficult questions to get right.

On the one hand, I don't think there's too many players or fans out there who would argue that the prize money available at the lower level Futures and Challenger tournaments is woefully insufficient.

But I'd also argue that the prizemoney available at the very top level (eg Grand Slam QFs and upwards) is more than generous. In fact the players who are picking up these huge prize money cheques are typically also those with the largest commercial deals, and also the players who receive appearance money for lower/mid level ATP/WTA events, and also have exhibition event money to enjoy. In other words, the non-prize money rewards dwarf prize-money in many cases for these bigger players.

Personally I don't think that it would be appropriate if players could do much more than "break even" after all costs by just playing Futures level events successfully, since these are very much the lowest rung on the ladder, and designed to be a stepping stone to the higher levels. But I think things are so out of balance at the moment, that I'd be surprised if any Futures only players, even the Carreno-Bustas of this world, could ever even come close to breaking even after all costs. A realignment in the men's events to $15k and $25k for Futures, and perhaps minimum prizepools at $50k or $75k for Challengers doesn't seem profligate given that prizemoney levels haven't changed materially at these levels in 20 years. I believe all this would do would reduce the losses of many players, rather than allow them to have a nice life "slumming it" in Futures and occasional Challengers, but given the fact that it is taking longer and longer for Junior to senior transitions, and with the rewards from match-fixing more attractive to lose on the bread-line, something DOES need to be done at the lower levels to encourage a healthy base of up and coming players.

Perhaps the way to do this is to levy a percentage (half?) of all Grand Slam, ATP and WTA prizepool increases going forward and earmark it for increased prizemoney at Futures and Challenger events. So for example, if Wimbledon increases prizemoney by 10% next year (around $3.5m), perhaps half of this could go into this ITF "pot". That would be $7m alone from the Grand Slams, and I'd imagine if all the WTA and ATP events through the year were added in, we might have a "pot" of $15m to use for Futures and Challengers, probably over $300,000 extra per week for the "junior" tours.

Obviously the issue is the fact that we have 3 global tennis bodies: the WTA, the ATP and the ITF needing to pool their resources, and of course add to this the hundreds of national federations involved locally, plus the various tournaments each needing to balance their books.......I would imagine the simple fact is that no agreement can be reached amongst them all........so the status quo continues ad infinitum.

But I'm confident with the likes of the Big 4 putting pressure on the various interest groups, perhaps a break-through could be made. It might need the ITF to implode for this to happen, but my sense is that nobody would miss them one iota, and that the ATP and WTA could easily "create" their own ITF quango body to manage the lower levels of the game with less to lose and therefore more willingness th change things!

When was the last time the ITF change things radically without being forced to do so via pressure?

PaulM · Tennis legend

The ITF consider that if you are not top 300 (singles) you are not "professional".

The ITF do not, I believe, see it as their job to enable players on the futures circuit to make a living playing full-time, that is not the purpose of those tournaments. I would agree with this. I think the 10k/15k needs to go up to reflect inflation generally, but I don't think we should be at a stage where someone ranked 700 is not having to worry about money.

The problem of course is that it can be very difficult to move up the ranks and the tournament tiers because you will run out of money very fast, so players tend to get "stuck" and either quit, or just keep plodding along in debt in the hope that they will break through eventually. And of course if you want to have the best chance of breaking through you need to commit 100%, and side ventures to earn extra pennies (coaching mainly) can be detrimental to that (something Nik Slater realised and she decided to quit the coaching altogether to give her all to becoming a doubles specialist, and look what has happened in 8 months).

Realistically you need to be up in the top 300 pretty quickly to at least be making money to break even.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Some years ago research on pay and expenses concluded that a British women needed to be in the top 120 to make a living from prize money alone. With inflation I assume the break point would now be closer to top 100. That would suggest that for most years in the last 20, no British woman was earning a living from prize money alone.

TomTraubert · Futures level

doesn't Em also have a job job, a real job???
pretty sure she used to pretty regulally do work that she does to pay for her tennis. PA in a marketing agency or something but dont quote me on any of this