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The loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player

• chasebank 2y ago
  Andre Agassi spent the 9th most time as #1 tennis player in the world and in his book, Open, he says multiple times how lonely of a sport tennis is. I think the loneliness of tennis affects the whole spectrum of the ranks, not just the bottom. FWIW, Open is one of my favorite books and a very easy read if you're interested.
  • mattw2121 2y ago
    Open is a great book and so is "You Cannot Be Serious".
  • jakub_g 2y ago
    There's a few references specifically to Agassi a few times in this writeup > Andre Agassi was lonely but never alone, players on the Futures tour are both.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • photon_lines 2y ago
    Agassi is a far outlier though. I'm not saying that it's not a lonely road, but I remember reading about his dad being a compulsive gambler and him having to play a match for their house when he was 12-14 years old. Think about what it's like having to grow up and go through something like that -- how would you be able to relate to other players who are close to you in rankings? Either way kudos to him for taking that on.
• throw0101b 2y ago
  Vox had a video a few months ago, "Why most tennis players struggle to make a living": * https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/9/12/23870760/tennis-wages-sports-performance-pay https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/9/12/23870760/tennis-wages-s... One anecdote: one ranked player made more money restringing other players's rackets than actually competing.
  • jakub_g 2y ago
    From the original article in the thread: > Those “rich fucks” kept Johnny on the road, mind, as he offered a racket-stringing service to players. Johnny has claimed he’s the only player ever to make a consistent living on the Futures tour, and he kept overheads low, running the school bus on vegetable oil. More recently, he has been making YouTube videos about “extreme couponing”, where he lists the great savings he has made on his weekly grocery shop.
  • optimalsolver 2y ago
    Is it true that "You're not worthy to restring my racket" is a popular insult in tennis circles?
    • ore0s 2y ago
      Nope, this isn’t Downton Abbey. The further you go in competitive tennis, the tighter the community gets. Also, playing tennis and stringing rackets are two distinct skillsets. For elite players the strings are just as crucial as the racket itself. Check out this interview with the stringer who traveled the globe with Federer for 15 years, ensuring he had nine freshly strung rackets for each match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sRSqSupzyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sRSqSupzyM
  • carabiner 2y ago
    Most olympians too, even medalists: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/02/24/survey-finds-olympic-elite-athletes-struggling-financially/111365842/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/02/24/su... Once at Mammoth in the locker room, I overheard a family mentioning how they bought US olympic ski team jackets from the olympians themselves.
    • piuantiderp 2y ago
      My HS coach was an Olympic medalist.
• MisterBastahrd 2y ago
  Not really sure how this is much different from any consultant who does long projects on the road, at least as far as social isolation is concerned, really. You go to work, you do a job, and then you go back to the hotel. What I suspect is happening on top of everything else for these players is that (a) they're in a competitive field so they have to stay on top of their rest and diet at all times, (b) isolation is definitely a thing, but (c) many of them come from upper middle class backgrounds and it's a culture shock to bleed through money just to travel for tournaments and have proper gear.
  • p1esk 2y ago
    The difference is: consultants are expected to get paid after they complete the job, tennis players lose a lot more matches on average than they win so they usually do not get paid.
  • fallinditch 2y ago
    I understand that the actual playing the matches is very isolating too: there may be a crowd of people watching the 2 players but it's just them on the court battling it out. The intensity of the battle and its psychological components probably adds to the isolation on the court, and loneliness off it.
  • alexpotato 2y ago
    A family acquaintance of mine was a consultant with an interesting work/life balance: - He had no permanent physical residence aka he didn't own a house or rent an apartment (he did have a PO Box in a city just for a legal address) - Everything he owned was in 4 suitcases - Other than scheduled PTO, the firm decided where he would go for consulting projects (often on short notice) which could be anywhere in the world - When he DID have PTO, the firm would pay for ANYTHING he wanted to do. Rent a speedboat? Check! Fly him to Asia to see a friend? Check! He had a girlfriend (who I was friends with and how I knew him) so I don't think he was totally isolated. That being said, must be tough to put down roots in that situation.
    • pas 2y ago
• p1esk 2y ago
  In pro tennis only the top 100 players actually make more money than they spend.
  • xmprt 2y ago
    To be fair, the same could be said about a lot of gamers. People spend $1000+ on a gaming PC and even if they enjoy playing competitively, most of them never go pro. I wonder if pro tennis is a case of people not wanting to go pro or not being able to go pro. Edit: I think a handful of people are misunderstanding my point. I'm saying that not everything has to have a monetary return on investment. Even if the "opportunity cost" of spending all that time grinding is super high, the return is just the enjoyment that one gets from playing the game or from feeling accomplished to reach a certain goal/rank even if it's not pro level.
    • jncfhnb 2y ago
      $1000k on a gaming pc is an extremely small investment compared to the time spent training to be competitive at anything.
    • hombre_fatal 2y ago
      If it were just $1000, it would be a bargain. The real cost is the opportunity cost of grinding and never making it.
    • tpurves 2y ago
      $1000 could be less than the costs of just flights to one weekend tennis tournament which, because of seeding, you're highly likely to go out in the first round as a low ranked player.
    • OfficeChad 2y ago
      [dead]
  • TeaBrain 2y ago
    This may have been true at one time, but it is not true now. 128 players qualify for the first round of each of the four major tournaments and for each, the players have a guaranteed payday even if they lose in the first round. For the 128 who qualify for the US Open, players will get over $80k for just playing the first round, even if they lose. For example, the 101st ranked ATP (men) player has made over $450k from prize money in just a little over half of this season. The 102nd ranked player has made over $330k so far. Considering that there are two more majors left this year which they'll likely qualify for, they'll likely make another several hundred thousand more at-least this year from just competition. Many of the top 150 tennis players often make the equivalent amount to their prize money or greater in sponsorships. The lack of sustainable income from just competition becomes more true once you look outside the top 150. The low ranking tennis players that the article referred to were outside the top 300, which meant that they were stuck playing the futures tournaments where there is little possibility for money. Conor Niland, who wrote the article, only briefly achieved a career high ranking of 129, but spent most of his career ranked outside of the top 300. https://www.atptour.com/en/players/luca-van-assche/v0dz/overview https://www.atptour.com/en/players/luca-van-assche/v0dz/over... https://www.atptour.com/en/players/yoshihito-nishioka/n732/overview https://www.atptour.com/en/players/yoshihito-nishioka/n732/o...
• timdellinger 2y ago
  Ironically enough, professional pickleball players today are making more money than WNBA players and more money than most of the folks that this article talks about.
  • antisthenes 2y ago
    I would bet most of the money comes from endorsing and peddling selling pieces of plastic for $249, when they cost $10 to make in China, not from actual tournament winnings.
    • office_drone 2y ago
      Yes, articles on Ben Johns suggest his income is 5% winnings and 95% endorsements.
• jncfhnb 2y ago
  I don’t understand why these people are continuing to try to play tennis professionally when the odds of them making something resembling a living wage seems so grim. Like, after a few years of trying it’s got to be obvious. The author here mentions his parents pushing him and his sister to do this. Is the low key story that these are mostly just old money children in a limbo of their parents’ whims and lifelines?
  • p1esk 2y ago
    It’s similar to wanting to start your own company: the odds to succeed are grim.
    • generic92034 2y ago
      Or surviving as a book author, or making it as an actor/actress in Hollywood, or ... - they simply have a dream and it is quite hard to find the right timing for giving up such dreams.
      • Miraste 2y ago
        Succeeding as an author, actor, or tennis player is a much greater challenge than starting a company. There are millions and millions of companies succeeding well enough to keep their owners afloat. The chances for creative careers and professional sports, meanwhile, are abysmal.
    • pineaux 2y ago
      This is not true. The odds of becoming a unicorn are grim. The odds of getting a decent wage is actually quite high if you ask me.
      • awelxtr 2y ago
        In Spain 60% of companies don't survive the 5 year mark [1]. That's what I think when people say that making a company is hard. [1] https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12101579/01/23/El-60-de-las-empresas-espanolas-no-llega-hasta-los-cinco-anos-de-existencia.html https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12101579/01/23...
• Liquix 2y ago
  > I made virtually no lasting friendships on tour through my seven years, despite coming across hundreds of players my own age living the same life as my own. > Some players did go out partying locally, which I always felt was a stupid thing to do. Why put yourself through the budget travel, practice and expense to then go drinking in some remote and isolated corner of the world? I'm sure Futures events are isolating and lonely, but it seems the author was quick to cast judgment on the players who prioritized socializing over winning at all costs.
  • tpurves 2y ago
    Indeed. By definition, very few aspiring players break through to be among the very top players. But I bet some of those socializing players at least came away from their journey with a little less loneliness and more lasting friendships.
  • bojan 2y ago
    Is he wrong? That is an equivalent of weeknight drinking for us (remote) office workers. Showing up to work with a hangover is not a great thing to do.
    • jononor 2y ago
      You do not need to get drunk, or drink any alcohol at all to have a good time. No need to go until early in the morning either...
    • dukeyukey 2y ago
      I do not optimise my life to benefit my day job. And even if I did, socialising with your coworkers has a strong chance of being much better for your career than another early night.
    • hext 2y ago
      You can go out for drinks with coworkers and not show up hungover the next day... Like, office happy hours are basically a cliché at this point.
    • 2y ago
• alexpotato 2y ago
  > By the time he had cracked the top 20, he was ignoring me completely. Many years ago, I was the global "head of support" for the main trading application at a large bank. I sat on the trading floor (b/c most of my users were there) and one of my jobs involved training the newly hired junior traders how to use the software. The training was usually on their first or second day on the floor. At this point in the story, they were INCREDIBLY polite to me. "Thank you so much for showing us this", "Wow! This training is so great! We really appreciate it!" Within two or three days, they stopped saying hello or even talking to me unless they were having an issue or there was an outage. Reading about how ranking determines social interactions in the tennis world resonated rather strongly with me given my experiences working in technology at a bank.
  • noisy_boy 2y ago
    This is reflection of our innate tendency to fit ourselves in an hierarchy and judge others by their perceived position in that hierarchy. The stronger someone attaches their self worth to their place in this hierarchy (ranking for tennis players, job title in corporate setting etc), the stronger their behaviour towards others will be driven by it.
    • mgh2 2y ago
      Ego is a universal human problem, not only at work and sports, but in anything in life.
    • sublinear 2y ago
      This may be true, but I'd also argue that distinguishing power solely derived from hierarchy (nepotism) and everything else can be difficult. I might be misunderstanding, but it sounds like you're saying meritocratic hierarchy can't exist. The observed behavior of someone in a higher position might simply be because it's their job to detect and correct ignorance and inefficiency.
    • brnt 2y ago
      > This is reflection of our innate tendency to fit ourselves in an hierarchy and judge others by their perceived position in that hierarchy. * some peoples innate tendency. I have always observed this behaviour as typical for one or two of Moltke's quadrants, people I so far have managed to be quite insulated from.
• deleted 2y ago
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• asdff 2y ago
  Most individual competitive sports are like this. The top of the crop get the bulk of the tournament payouts, the bottom get a pittance that barely cover their costs to attend the tournament, and the ones who miss the cut entirely get a mound of debt for making their way out there to merely be a warm body for other talent to route. Sponsorships help cover some costs but not everyone can get very lucrative sponsor deals especially a low rank player. There's honestly better money giving lessons for probably $150-250 an hour or so than there is making a go at the world stage. I'm sure that's a path many end up taking after the writing is clear on the wall.
  • jakub_g 2y ago
    Not to mention that in many sports, you can literally be a world champion level and just barely affording to cover the necessary costs (best equipment, long training camps abroad etc.) to compete at the highest level. In my country we have olympic medalists in kayaking, rowing etc. and they are nowhere close to making any money out of it.
    • johannes1234321 2y ago
      > In my country we have olympic medalists in kayaking, rowing etc. and they are nowhere close to making any money out of it. That's the reason that in many countries the zoom Olympic athletes work for the state (soldier, police, ...) where training and representing the country at competitions are part of the Job and once the aports career is over ideally they get a job as clerk or such in the administration
      • JohnBooty 2y ago
        Countries like the USA have a system with slightly less pretense. If you're part of the Olympic program you basically get paid a small living wage (but, importantly, all your expenses are paid for: food, medical care equipment, etc) to train full time.
        • johannes1234321 2y ago
• gnicholas 2y ago
  > The true unfortunates, though, were the ones who were talented enough to rationally hope to advance. These were people who grew up as the best tennis players in their country, but were stuck between 300 and 600 in the world, not quite contending for the Challenger Tour nor the qualifiers at grand slams, but winning just often enough to keep their tennis dream faintly alive. Seems like a familiar pattern.
  • renewiltord 2y ago
    Just like startups innit? Fail quick or win big. But the worst is muddling along. You might be a figma you might be nobody. Nothing to do but keep going. M
    • deely3 2y ago
      I'm not sure that I agree with this metaphor. Slow win can still become a working good business even without becoming a unicorn.
  • ilaksh 2y ago
    I don't think people are putting this in proper perspective. Top 2000 in the whole world? There are millions of smart and athletic tennis players. The guy in this article is not really even low ranking. There are millions of people who play tennis multiple times a week and wish they could rank that high. He is actually already in an elite group. It seems like it's really only a fraction of the top 1% that can make this into a viable healthy career. Anyone who is even surviving as a pro tennis player without another source of income has elite skills.
• lurker919 2y ago
  When I was a child I dreamed of being a professional sportsperson - a soccer star or a tennis pro. Now in my late 20s, I shudder thinking of the pressure/stress, injuries and constant competitiveness that my life would have been if I had gone down that path.
  • impossiblefork 2y ago
    Soccer is actually okay though. You can be top 100 in Sweden and be a professional making good money. Being top 100 in Sweden is actually achievable. But in tennis you have top 128 in the world.
    • j7ake 2y ago
      The nice thing about team sports is that a team needs support players as well as superstars. This means there’s a career for people who aren’t the best talent wise but are willing to contribute to the team in other ways.
      • impossiblefork 2y ago
        I don't think that's true these days, even defenders and the like need to perform very well for a team to be successful. There's a high level of performance and skill throughout the entire teams. But there are simply more spots and to be top 128 in tennis is almost impossible.
• smallstepforman 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • navane 2y ago
    He was treated fair and just, and with that the other players were respected.
  • giraffe_lady 2y ago
    There are a lot of small insular little fields like this where the main people all know each other personally and professionally: touring musicians, professional surfers, that sort of thing. Tennis players definitely. When one of these people receives negative publicity that reaches the general public and no one from their field really speaks out on their behalf, you can usually assume it's because they're widely disliked among their peers. Professional tact may prevent colleagues from publicly saying anything against them, but they will just decline the opportunity to speak in their favor like this. It's a heuristic and not a perfect one but it's pretty reliable. If it were just a matter of internal sport politics they would have some allies that would come to their defense. If they are personally disliked even by their associates & allies you get this kind of silence.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • krisoft 2y ago
    > 8-time defending champ and most likely the GOAT None of that should matter at all. > expelled from the country due to a whim of a local politician in a position of power It was the Australian Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. That is a federal position. Saying “local politician” makes it sound like it was the city major or something. But if you mean a politician local to Australia, sure. Who else do you think should have decided?
  • jarsin 2y ago
    He is the GOAT by nearly all stats including the most important one, record Grand Slams. I say this as a massive Federer fan. I can barley watch djokovic, but can spend hours watching fed.
• amelius 2y ago
  Is there a self reinforcing effect that keeps high ranking tennis players in the higher ranks, other than playing regularly against other high ranked players?
  • pas 2y ago
    genetics, skill, ability, mindset. sure more money translates to better coaching probably, but it seems that ceteris paribus better players can spend many years being better. so basically rising players have an logarithmic curve with an asymptote. and sure they are getting better and higher, but they should estimate their peak. especially because even if current top players retire younger ones can easily take the spot from more experienced players. all in all the current ranking system is very efficient (lots of data points, it's not like boxing where matches are organized after some initial success to maximize the money made, slowly take on opponents that seem beatable or otherwise lucrative, etc.) tennis and other very athletic individual sports are mature (progress is mostly due to technology, dietary know-how, better data-driven coaching), and there's just no big chance of an underdog beating the numbers. (especially considering that the numbers are much better, again due to more and better data and compute)
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• gumby 2y ago
  Was just reflecting on this yesterday: when I parked my car I saw a paper sign on the lamppost: “learn tennis from a professional”. The person was the number 1 player in Nepal, ranked in the 1200s professionally. I assume and hope he was in Palo Alto as a student and just wanted to make some beer money. Otherwise that sign would reflect a pretty tough situation. The Stanford faculty family swim and tennis club has a pro, the local Palo Alto tennis and skating club has a pro…there are a lot of them to go around.
  • gnicholas 2y ago
    Plus all the kids advertising on Nextdoor, including members of Stanford's team.
  • dcreater 2y ago
    He most likely will make more money coaching than playing competitive tennis. Especially in the Bay area.
    • titanomachy 2y ago
      He would probably make more money washing cars in the bay area than doing almost any job in Nepal. It's a dismally poor country.
• nextworddev 2y ago
  Sounds like pro tennis has a lot in common with startup world and SV
  • pas 2y ago
    startups have a much higher variance, and a good product is a good product even if it doesn't grow into the next X (pun? no no.)
• staminade 2y ago
  I really recommend reading any of David Foster Wallace's essays about tennis. The book "String Theory" collects all his writing on the subject. He was a lifelong fan of the sport, but also a nationally ranked junior player and he's able to provide exceptional insight in the insane dedication (as well as talent) needed to reach even the lowest rungs of the competitive tennis world, and what a grind the tour can be for lower ranked professionals.
  • papa-whisky 2y ago
    The essay that the book takes its title from is particularly relevant to this discussion and freely available online: https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david-foster-wallace/ https://www.esquire.com/sports/a5151/the-string-theory-david... (As an aside, I'm surprised to see this in Esquire, do they still publish writing like this or was it a very different magazine "back in the day"?)
    • daseiner1 2y ago
      Can’t comment on the current state of Esquire, but it certainly was “legit” in the past. I’ll take this opportunity to promote the classic Esquire piece “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-gay-talese/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has...
      • duck 2y ago
        Just to add, they have a really great archive site: https://classic.esquire.com/ https://classic.esquire.com/
        • NaOH 2y ago
          And the person in charge of Esquire Classic has a site of good long-form journalism that predates the internet. http://www.thestacksreader.com http://www.thestacksreader.com
  • 2y ago
• tthhy58855 2y ago
  Sounds awfully like academia. I hate meeting some of my former colleagues. Worse, success in academia is not entirely determined by how smart you are - your ability to socialize and market had far greater impact. Ofc. academics' priority for knowledge is far far lower today than fame and money.
• anthomtb 2y ago
  I spent much of my late teens and early twenties cursing my thin boned and uncoordinated body, wishing their was some sport in which I would not be the worst, let alone the best. I idolized athletes across all sorts of sports and wished I could become one. Articles like this make me almost thankful for a lack of physical gifts. An obsessive personality combined with any natural athletic talent would likely have lead to a futile attempt to make a living from sport. Instead, my career is as unglamorous as described in the TFA but the wages are certainly better. And I am probably fitter and get more enjoyment out of recreational sports than most who were truly top-level athletes at some point in their lives. If there's a higher power out there, I am pretty sure they had my back here.
  • lostlogin 2y ago
    It could be worse, you could have ability and obsessive parents. I’m a radiographer. Several times I’ve scanned kids aged less than 10 for pretty badly injured joints related to sport. Stuck in my mind are two - both completely munted elbows. One did several hours of tennis every day, and all day Saturday and Sunday. The other had much the same regime for golf. Their parents were set on making world famous athletes. It was quite depressing.
    • dclowd9901 2y ago
      Is that not considered negligence or abuse?
      • NortySpock 2y ago
        No, it's considered an attentive and supportive parent. Abuse and neglect is only when the parent is mean for no return. /s
      • exolymph 2y ago
        Colloquially, sure. CPS only intervenes in really extreme cases.
    • The_Colonel 2y ago
• j7ake 2y ago
  Sad story to read. It is almost as if it is better to have failed out early than to spend your prime years trying to break it into the top 100. Classical music, art, poet, writers, pro athletes all fall into this category.
  • mattm 2y ago
    Any public entertainment jobs where the people at the top are famous
• drchiu 2y ago
  As a parent with kids who play junior tennis, I remind them after every loss (and win) that this is just a hobby. But the number of parents who take this so seriously would surprise anyone not part of this culture. The travelling, the hotel rooms, the large number of tournaments played every week -- all these things start early (7-8 years old). School? Forget about it. They're superficially home-schooled. Tennis is all they do, and if they're lucky (at least by the standards of the article), they don't get good enough to be a low-level "pro" and get a chance to go to school for a proper education and get a regular job that pays well. If they're unlucky, they get a D1 school, on a full-ride scholarship, and then waste a few years of their lives continuuing to damage their bodies in pursuit of "making it" as a pro tennis player.
  • nightowl_games 2y ago
    Maybe even if you don't make it, you'd look back fondly on your time as a competitor as a formative period. I'm sure you'd gain lots of skills by having such discipline and rigor.
    • eviks 2y ago
      But then you've wasted all the time you could've applied all that "discipline and rigor" to
      • memkit 2y ago
        I've never regretted having fun in the sun.
        • StackRanker3000 2y ago
          You don’t need discipline and rigor for the fun parts, and you won’t get them there either. You develop them through the grind and the sacrifice, which may or may not be something you’ll want your child to endure.
    • aeonik 2y ago
      Meh, I was in the "Tennis Machine". I did not learn any discipline because everything was scheduled for me. I really didn't like most of my experience. Two positives: 1. I kept a lot my agility, muscle, and flexibility. Even after ceasing all physical activity for over 10 years. 2. Sharpened the connection between my mind and body. I'm really good at learning new physical skills that require fine motor control. Though I'm sure many, many other activities can provide these benefits as well. If I could go back, I would spend less time in those tennis camps, less time playing WoW, and more time in shop class, and hanging with the robotics people.
• helij 2y ago
  "The greats in tennis often become known by their first names – Roger, Rafa, Serena..." When was this written? He forgot Novak.
• lizknope 2y ago
  I always felt that the point of playing sports was to do something as a team. Drawing up a football play to throw the ball to the open receiver. Score a touchdown and everyone gets high fives. Or get the basketball rebound and pass to an open teammate for the shot. When you win you all go out for pizza and have fun. Or you lose and still go out for pizza. Playing a single player sport like tennis seems lonely just thinking about it.
  • naveen99 2y ago
    One on one can be fun in basketball, ping pong. Problem with tennis is it’s hard to talk to your friendly opponent from opposite sides of the court. Team sports are more optimized for spectators than for the fun of the athlete.
  • mastazi 2y ago
    I think that this applies to most human endeavours, not just sport. I used to produce electronic music on my own, as a side gig; it felt very solitary and I am thankful to be now part of a band where I can interact with other musicians who became also good friends; money-wise it is worse but it's not my main income so I'm fine with that. As a software developer, I have worked for a few years as a solo freelancer, it felt in some ways like what the author describes in the OP, moving to a "traditional" 9-to-5 dev job actually felt like a breath of fresh air, despite all the shortcomings of that type of job.
    • lizknope 2y ago
      I'm in integrated circuit design and one of the most rewarding aspects is brainstorming with coworkers on a white board. When someone asks a question about a bug in the flow and you have the answer it feels good to help and vice versa when someone else helps you. Sometimes the job sucks when the deadlines are approaching so its nice to be able to complain about the stress with coworkers while getting a beer. In many ways a good team at work is similar to a sports team at least from what I remember in school.
      • 2y ago
• dclowd9901 2y ago
  Man, this is such a downer. I think most rational people avoid a professional sports career unless they “have that special something,” but so few do. To scrape and struggle for years on end all alone during it must absolutely gut a person.
• pbj1968 2y ago
  Yes, the talent quickly falls off a cliff once you get into weird, niche sports. Remember this when the Olympics roll around. If the truly gifted set themselves towards many of those events, the records would be obliterated.
• LarsDu88 2y ago
  It's crazy how strong the power law distribution holds for success in the real world. Tennis stars, youtubers tech startups, videogames on steam, even drug cartels... In a given year, the top 5 in any of these categories can end up absorbing more than 50% of the entire market! There should be a class in high school that goes over the wealth distribution of various industries...
• yalogin 2y ago
  This is the problem with any profession where there is a pyramid structure people vie to be part of. It takes an immense of dedication to reach that spot and the competition is insane. You spend all waking hours working on that craft with no assurance that you can even make a living off it. This is why I never pushed my kids towards sports as much as I love it.
• telchior 2y ago
  By random chance I recently had a flight seated next to a coach for a young player who was in the women's Future bracket. The coach had been a Future player once too. I've never really understood, at an emotional level, why pro sports exist. So after a while of conversation, during which he mentioned a few times how difficult life was for them, I finally felt like I could ask: "If it's like you've described, why do it at all?" He stared into space for a good few seconds, then responded: "Glory." I've wondered a few times since then whether the girl he was coaching would think that glory was enough; she had a look that, following the article, I'd describe as glassy-eyed loneliness. But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation. For myself... I still don't really get it.
  • piuantiderp 2y ago
    What motivates you, comfort?
  • The_Colonel 2y ago
    > But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation. Most of these people "burn" their youth chasing the dream and don't get a non-sport education/experience. A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job.
    • barry-cotter 2y ago
      This seems very unlikely to me given the propensity of finance firm to hire even college athletes never mind people who got to be in the top one or 200 of their sport in the world. Anyone who is capable of pushing the work in day after day to get a good at some thing that doesn’t very well like sport is capable of putting enormous amount of work day after day to get good at something that does pay well. Most famously jocks are good at sales. Athletes are no fools. Often of the top of my head Michael Jordan has had a very successful career as an investor after the end of his sporting career. Michelle Debruin, and Irish Olympic gold medallist in swimming, went on to become a Barrister, a trial lawyer in the American parlance. The people who stay in Borsh are staying in sports because they really really love i,t not because they’re not capable of making more money in other ways.
• SamihaSingh 2y ago
  Reminds of some of the essays on theplayerstribune.com - would highly recommend taking a look at the website for real stories of professional athletes.
• sjducb 2y ago
  This guy could have had so much fun travelling the world. Sure he’s not got much status in the tennis community, but everyone else is impressed if you say you're 378th in the world. All he had to do was spend time with non tennis ppl in all of the amazing places he went to.
• exodust 2y ago
  Well-written, at least he had writing to fall back on. There's a humour just under the surface in his reflections. From Wikipedia: His pro career spanned 7 years from 2005-2012. He earned $247,686 in prize money. He made it to a few grand slams, even playing Novak at the US Open, although he retired from the match in the second set due to food poisoning!
  • scotteric 2y ago
    $247,686 over 7 years is around $35,000 per year. After traveling expenses, hotel rooms, and equipment, how much of that is left over?
    • exodust 2y ago
      Not much. I wasn't suggesting it was a satisfying amount at all. But in terms of personal achievement, he should feel proud of qualifying for the grand slams and playing on the big stage, even if that moment was short-lived.
• cryptica 2y ago
  Very interesting reading that. The part about how ranking affect social interactions was particularly relatable for me. In my case, I experienced this with cryptocurrency. I was a contributor/developer to a major crypto project (was once ranked top 10 in the world). At one point when the token price climbed from $1 to $7 (for no apparent reason), people came out of of the woodwork to talk to me and even offered to work for me for free... Then when the price dropped back down a few weeks later (also for no apparent reason), most people disappeared completely except one guy who kept in touch and I collaborated with later (he happened to know me from a different project I built). It's weird how that works. But I guess tennis must feel lonely because it's closer to a meritocracy; if you fail, you can't dispute the score, it's your fault. There are enough matches that you can't really claim that you had unlucky pairings... Maybe a few times but what about the other 50 times? If you fail at tennis, it's close to truth to suggest that you're just not good enough. In speculative crypto investments and tech startups, there are no rules and you typically only get one meaningful make-or-break opportunity in your entire career and also there is an almost infinite number of variables. Most of these variables have nothing to do with you... So if you fail, it's probably some random investor's fault for dumping the token at a bad time or Elon started hyping up DogeCoin and so all the focus shifted towards memecoins away from your project... It's completely out of your control so there is nothing to beat yourself up about.