Former French Open semi-finalist Ernests Gulbis believes too many players on the tour are facing financial uncertainty in their careers.
The 29-year-old Latvian has experienced life among the elite of men’s tennis as well as at the lower level. A former top 10 player, Gulbis has endured a roller-coaster career. Last year saw him play in both Challenger and ATP events as he bids to break back into the top 100 for the first time since September 2016. During a career that has been marred by injury, he currently finds himself at 195th in the world.
“I think it’s like everything in life, it’s the point of view from which you’re watching any given situation. For example if you’ve been playing Challenger qualies, it’s just gratifying being in an ATP 500 event. When everything is much better organised, you feel like a real tennis player, because in Challengers sometimes you don’t,” he told Sport 360.
“As much as the organisers are trying to make you feel good, they don’t have enough financial support, they don’t have the facilities, so the things that you’re used to, you don’t get them, and it somehow gets you down.”
Despite travelling the tour solo, Gulbis is not immuned from the costs of the sport. This week he is playing in the Dubai Tennis Championships after coming through two rounds of qualifying. He didn’t know he made the cut to play in the tournament until last Friday. Prompting him to book a last-minute flight from Vienna to Dubai at a hefty price of €2,800. That cost was just for a one-way flight.
“There has to be some kind of safety. Players nowadays ranked 100 or 150 they are really good players, they don’t have this safety. I think in other sports, the top sports, there is a bigger amount of people feeling secure,” he said about the financial situation players are facing.
“The amount of people feeling safe and secure about their future in tennis is too little…
“I think it’s really necessary for players to at least break even. You don’t break even if you travel alone, if you travel with a coach, forget about it. If I pass the qualies and I win two matches, I beat a guy who is ranked in the top-100, and the other is 120. I beat good players, and by beating these good players I cannot even break even; something is not right.”
In the year-to-date ATP rankings, only two players have surpassed the $1 million prize money mark so far this year – Roger Federer and Marin Cilic. In contrast, those currently ranked 85th or lower has earned just 10% or less of that figure. World No.100 Dudi Sela’s current earnings current stands at $84,720.
2018 prize money leaders (as of 26/2/18)
1) Federer, Roger – $3,656,655
2) Cilic, Marin – $1,631,735
3) Chung, Hyeon – $734,126
4) Edmund, Kyle – $714,926
5) Dimitrov, Grigor – $613,125
6) Schwartzman, Diego – $584,678
7) Berdych, Tomas – $462,970
8) Thiem, Dominic – $399,348
9) Monfils, Gael – $378,698
10) Sandgren, Tennys – $380,603
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50) Basic, Mirza – $155,572
100) Sela, Dudi – $84, 720
To tackle the disparity, Gulbis believes that grand slams should share out a greater portion of their revenues to the players. In the last financial year the Australian Open made A$320M in revenue. The majors argue that there has been a rise in prize money in recent time, especially for the lowers rounds. Novak Djokovic raised the debate last month when he spoke at an ATP players’ conference. Mentioning the potential idea of introducing a union on the tour to protect the players.
“How much money do the Grand Slams make? What would happen if all four Grand Slams would give 10 per cent of the money they earn to all the top-100 players. Every player would get a certain amount of money and you can help them become competitive, they can hire a fitness coach or whatever,” Gulbis suggests.
“We have money in our sport, it’s just being channelled, not to the wrong, everybody has to make money, also the Grand Slams have to make money, but if you just take 10 per cent…”
Gulbis will take on second seed Lucas Pouille in Dubai later today.
