Racket Sports Industry News November 2025

Table of Contents

• RACKET BUSINESS CALENDAR OF EVENTS

• DAVE MILEY - NATIONS REPRESENTED IN THE TOP 100 ME …

  • The system is broken, and it’s not looking good fo …

• RAQUET SPORTS PROFESSIONALS NEEDED WORLDWIDE

• PLAY YOUR COURT OR FRAPPE? COMPETING OR COMPLEMENT …

• SHORT ODDS & ENDS

• ANNUAL REPORT FROM GERMANY’S DTB

Your One-Stop Event Resource for Racquet Sports

The top Racket Business menu includes the Events button. We encourage our readers to use this button as a helpful resource when planning for education, travel, and networking.

At the top of the page, we also list training courses and certification workshops for tennis, pickleball, padel, platform tennis, and cardio tennis.

I have written so much over the past few years about professional tennis and about the current “broken” system, and the articles can be viewed on my website www.davemileytennis.com.

Dominic Thiem said recently that it costs approximately 1 million dollars to go from a ten year’s ten-year-old junior player to reach the top 100 ATP rankings and start earning money. This money for his development came from a combination of his family, the Austrian Tennis Federation, and sponsors, and not from the ATP/WTA tours or the Grand Slams.

In the article….. “top international tennis…what’s in it for the tennis federations and the tennis farmers and factory workers” I explained that unlike sports like football, ice hockey, rugby, baseball etc. there is no system to reward or pay back the people or organizations that develops the players that later reach the top 100 ATP and WTA and participate in the financially successful top pro tour events. It seems to be becoming increasingly more difficult for nations to get players into the top 100.

On the way to the ATP event in Almaty last week, my transport got stuck in traffic, and I started to look at the current rankings and at the nations that are represented in the top 100 (see details of what I found in the photos attached).

I think for the health of the sport, it’s important to have a lot of countries from the different regions of the world represented at the top of the pro game but what I found is that we risk soon having a sport where only a few nations will be able to develop players good enough to get there.

What I saw is the following:

There are 28 nations represented in the top 100 of the men’s ranking and 36 nations in the Women’s rankings. There are 43 nations represented in the combined men’s and women’s rankings, but 17 of these only have one player. So just 26 nations have 2 or more players in the top 100 men's and women’s rankings combined.

In the men’s top 100 rankings, 4 nations have 46 players (46%), 8 nations have 66 players (66%), 13 nations have 81 players (81%), and 17 nations have 89 players (89%).

In the women’s rankings, 3 nations have 35 players (35%), 7 nations have 51 players (51%), 13 nations have 69 players (69%), and 21 nations have 85 players (85%).

In the men’s rankings, the Grand Slam nations have 38 players, and in the women’s rankings, they have 29 players, making a total of 67 players out of the combined men and women top 100 (33.5%). Their success is, of course, due to good work by those involved, but is also partly due to the large budgets they have for player development, the access to coaching support on the lower levels of the competition pathway, and wild cards for their players coming up, which players from most other nations do not often have access to.

In the combined 200 players ranked, 98 players are from only 6 nations (49%), and 129 players are from 10 nations (64.5%).

Countries like Argentina in the men's and the Czech Republic in the women's should be congratulated as they continue to develop players with fewer resources than the other top nations, and this is due to certain unique factors which I will not get into here.

What I fear is that in the future, there will be progressively fewer nations represented among the top 100 men and women, and this could have a very negative impact on the promotion of the sport globally and TV rights/sponsorship for the big tournaments that showcase the top players. Every player, wherever they are from, should feel that they have a chance to fulfill their dream to be a top players.

My suggestion has not changed since I ran for president of the ITF in 2019. There should be a system in place for the top pro events to give back to the game and to the development of the next generation of players. My suggestion continues to be that 10% of the Grand Slam prize money (approximately 6 million each) and a percentage of prizemoney from the top ATP/WTA tour events should all go into a Development Fund. For ATP/WTA, I suggest for 1000 level events- 5%, 500 level events-2.5% and 250 level events-1%. This 30 million+ fund could be jointly administered and then be used to support player development in the ITF member nations, especially the ones with no pro players in the top 100 rankings. This would give meaningful help to the federations with the development players and for the tournaments that bring them to the top level (Juniors, Futures, Challengers, etc.).

Despite the fact that the top 100 men and women have cost over 200 million to produce and that the international tournament pathway below the yours costs the ITF Federations over 100 million annually to organize, the Tours contribute nothing back. The Grand Slams give annually 3 million dollars to the Grand Slam Player Development Fund, and I commend them for this. But please keep in mind that this contribution of 3 million annually represents only 1.2% of the total combined 2025 Grand Slam prize money. The amount they were contributing in 1990 to the fund was 2.2 million, which was 7.3% of the 30 million combined prize money at that time. If the percentage linked to prize money had been maintained, the amount, which is contributed by the Slams today, would be close to 20 million dollars per year.

My prediction now is that if nothing is done to change the system, it is likely that in ten years there will be only 10-15 nations that can produce players to the level of the top 100 ATP and WTA, and this will not be good for the sport of tennis or for the income-generating potential of the top events.

We are getting information from Tennis Canada praising and promoting their National Bank Play Your Court Program. At the same time, we know about FRAPPE, the ‘Tennis and Pickleball for Families’ Initiative, which we wrote about in our December 2024 issue (Great Collaboration to Grow Racket Sports in Canada).

Here is the article we saw on October 3: Tennis Canada and National Bank unveil new Play Your Court project. What we can gain from this article is a great effort on the part of Tennis Canada to refurbish tennis courts. “Through the National Bank Play Your Court Program, our goal is to go beyond simply upgrading tennis infrastructure. It’s about building modern, accessible spaces that bring young people, families, and entire communities together to enjoy the game,” said Gavin Ziv, Chief Executive Officer, Tennis Canada.

The photo below is from a reopening ceremony of 4 refurbished courts in Mississauga.

The article continues, “Tennis participation in Canada has been on a steady upswing. In 2023, 13% of Canadians— nearly 5 million people — played tennis. According to the 2024 ITF Global Tennis Report, Canada ranks second in the world for the percentage of its population who play the sport (12.8%). This growing interest is an encouraging sign for tennis, but it also underscores the pressing need for more accessible, high-quality courts.

The National Bank Play Your Court Program, which has pledged $3 million to revitalize 100 courts across Canada by 2030, plays a key role in meeting the demand for well-maintained public tennis facilities.”

We understand that the Frappe system, endorsed by all major clubs in Quebec and in Ontario, is more on the ‘learning to play tennis’ side. Canadian tennis personality and CEO & CFO at All-Canadian Sports Management, Inc., Pierre Lamarche, said, “The Frappe system is the best I have seen for developing coaches and players worldwide in the progressive stream. At ACE, I have developed the Frappe system into our integrated ACE System annual plans for our High Performance stream.”

Looks to us that both systems very much complement each other. National Bank Play Your Court should work its magic wherever there is a court in need of resurfacing or wherever new tennis courts are needed. Tennis Canada should adopt the Frappe system and spread it all over Canada.

Wouldn’t that be great, eh? (sorry, I couldn’t resist…)

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

BNP Paribas Open adds Fage as premier sponsor 

Carlos Alcaraz to face amateurs in new Australian Open ‘Opening Week’ event

INTENNSE

INTENNSE Announces Dynamic Executive Team to Power 2026 Expansion

BBC SPORT

Saudi Arabia to host new ATP tournament from 2028 - BBC

USTA FLORIDA

USTA Florida Welcomes First Members of Innovative Fellowship Program

Register Now for the 2025 USTA Florida Tennis Summit (Nov 14-16)

TENNIS.COM

Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner take their rivalry—and star power—on the road for 2026 “Super Match”

YAHOO SPORTS

Make Room for the Next Generation: Venus and Serena Williams Launch Williams Family Excellence Program

Notes from the DTB Annual Report 2025

New this year: 

• Every player participating in 10,300 sanctioned tournaments and LK team competition has to pay an annual license fee of 10 Euros (juniors) and 20 Euros (19+)

• DTB has 1.5 million player members

• 108 players in the German talent pool (age 21 and below) are being funded by the DTB

• The national program “DTB Fast Learning Konzept” is being taught at over 150 facilities

• DTB organized 80 Certina German Padel Tour tournaments

• There are 53 ITF World Tennis Tour tournaments  for men, women, and juniors in Germany

• Clubs and teaching pros: the heart of German tennis

• 18 regional tennis associations under the DTB umbrella

• Biggest convention: International DTB Tennis Congress presented by HEAD. Every two years in January. 2025 in Munich. 1,000 participants, mostly coaches. Over 4,300 square feet of trade show. 56 speakers.

DTB and Padel

From Wikipedia: The national governing body (NGB) for Padel in Germany is the Deutscher Padel Verband (DPV), also known as the German Padel Federation. 

However, the sport's organizational structure in Germany also involves the German Tennis Federation (DTB). 

• Deutscher Padel Verband (DPV): The DPV was founded in 2010 and is the official national member of the International Padel Federation (FIP). It organizes the German Padel Tour and the Padel Bundesliga.

• Deutscher Tennis Bund (DTB): In 2022, the German Olympic Sports Confederation officially recognized the German Tennis Federation (DTB) as the body responsible for Padel as an associated sport. The DTB now strategically promotes and organizes aspects of the sport, including creating the Padel-specific digital platform "MyPadel". 

The DTB recognizes that the sport of Padel opens up a central, strategic opportunity for the continued development of the sustainability of its clubs and coaches, and of its own organizational structure. Treating Padel as its own, independent sport is a critical success factor for the DTB. Padel is therefore not only a valuable addition to the sport of tennis, but also an independent, high-potential growth area. That opens up the opportunity for the DTB to expand its role as one of the leading sports organizations in Germany, develop new markets, and strengthen its own structures long-term. Padel is therefore not only a chance for clubs and coaches, but at the same time an important step in the development of the organization to enrich the German sports landscape and actively shape the industry. In so doing, we bank on the following four core areas together with our state sections:

• Infrastructure

• Coaches Certification

• Competition Structures

• Communication & Digitalization

MyPadel, the new brand for Padel in the DTB, will be captivating, dynamic, and even more exciting - just like the sport deserves it. In the future, MyPadel will bundle all initiatives with the sport of Padel. The accompanying website mypadel.de powered by CUPRA forms the new digital court for the entire German Padel community - regardless if you’re a fan, player, coach, or association staff.