The plan for the player fund is - support up to place 500
The fund for poorly classified players in the tennis world rankings is taking shape. There are some deviations from the original idea.
by tennisnet.com
last edit: May 18, 2020, 07:44 pm
First of all: If the information that the portal opencourt.ca wants to know is correct, then the payouts from the player fund created at the suggestion of Novak Djokovic are handled differently for women and men. And the WTA players get out better than their colleagues from the ATP tour. But not all: Because the original plan that professionals should get support up to place 700 in the charts has been moved away. Now the numbers 500 should form the upper limit, the professionals get support from 101st place.
Here, too, there should be a natural sporting selection, because: A player on the WTA tour can receive a maximum of 10,400 US dollars as support. To do this, the athlete in question would have had to compete in a minimum of six tournaments on the WTA Tour between March 2019 and March 2020, including at least one Grand Slam event. The current number 500, Sada Nahimana from Burundi, naturally does not meet these criteria like all other professionals in their area. Nahimana has contested tournaments with a maximum of $ 25,000 on the ITF tour in the past twelve months.
Krunic - support for Grand Slam players only
On the other hand, only players who have earned at least $ 350,000 in prize money in the past twelve months or accumulated $ 1.4 million over the last four years would fall out of the grid. But these players shouldn't have any big financial worries anyway.
The original idea to support professionals up to 700th place was unanimously rejected in the WTA player council, according to Aleksandra Krunic. After most of the money comes from the Grand Slam tournaments, they only want to support (potential) Grand Slam players. The contributions of the ATP and the WTA could still cause discussions: Both organizations only make about a fifth of what they receive available as a subsidy.
While the doubles for women (up to 175th place) can call up the same amount as those classified in singles, the ATP proposal for pair runners (up to 200th place) sees only half (2,165.- US dollars) of that for single players ( 4,325.- USD) amount provided. For men, the income threshold is $ 250,000 for the past four years and $ 1 million for the past four years.
It should be noted, however, that the ATP provides its Challenger players with a travel allowance of up to US $ 4,000 a year anyway.
For tennis professionals who are ranked in the current world rankings between ranks 501 and 700, it is reported that an ITF support plan is in the works.