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 wag

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 This is a great question and I'll try to answer it. Like, after a few years of trying it’s got to be obvious. It took Roger Federer a few years on the pro tour to break into the top 100. The difference between the top 100 players and the players ranked 400-500 is not that large and crucially, it's perhaps not the sort of difference you might think. It's not like, say, power lifting where one guy can lift 500lbs every time and another guy can only lift 300lbs and if he's not able to get near 500lbs then yeah, he can probably see this isn't for him. In tennis, the 100th ranked guy is doing the same stuff as the 1st ranked guy. Just not as consistently. Even a weekend player occasionally smokes an unreturnable winner right down the line. A few more reasons. 1. As you climb the rankings and earn more, you can afford better coaching etc. 2. A lot of the low ranked guys have some skills equal to the top 10 guys. But one part of their game may be lacking. They think: if I can just improve that one thing I can go on a run. This isn't delusional, it happens a lot, and even the Federers and Nadals of the world improved their games over time. (Nadal had a subpar serve for years; for example) 3. These guys are young. Athletes peak around ~25 years. A 19 year old ranked #500 is still growing. It'd be different if he was 38 years old and still ranked #500. 4. These guys aren't dumb. They know the odds.