Spotlight Racket Sports Industry

Dave Miley: The Grand Slams, the Grand Slam players, professional tennis and some ideas to consider.

July 16, 2024

I have just spent three weeks at the Wimbledon Championships and attended the Qualifying event at Roehampton and the two weeks of the Championship main draws. Kazakhstan had five players playing the qualifying event (all reached the last round), four players in the main draw of the singles, two in main draw of the doubles and three others in the main draw of the juniors. Two of the players in the qualifying stayed at my house near the All England Club and we had the chance to discuss professional tennis and how hard it is for players ranked between 150 and 300 to make a living.

It was a very busy three weeks and today as I wait for my flight back to Astana, I have had the chance to reflect on a few things related to the Grand Slams and the overall level of play in the qualifying and junior events.

A good friend of mine and former top Irish player, Conor Niland who got as high as 125 ATP and who qualified for two grand slams, also released a book just before Wimbledon called “The Racket” about life on the lower level professional tour and how hard that life is. It is well worth a read.

The need to ensure that the top 300 men and women can make a good living is something I have written a lot about before and it was part of my platform In 2019 when I ran for ITF president. I have a few suggestions related to the Slams and Professional tennis in general and the promotion of the sport globally that I think could make the situation for these players better in the future (see the article I published in 2021 entitled “If the system of pro tennis is broken….then let’s fix it”

Before I give my suggestions about this matter, I want the reader to think about this:

• In the big 7 (The Slams including LTA), the ATP and WTA and the ITF, there are over 2400 full-time employees on salaries.

• There are over 1600 international-level umpires of white badge or better who make at least $750 per week plus expenses.

• Yet here are only 130 men and 120 women in singles and 30 men and women in doubles who make enough prizemoney to cover their costs which are around $200,000 per year if they travel with a coach. The rest of the players lose money.

The way the general public views a good professional tennis player is one that plays in the Grand Slams. These players are respected but it currently only relates to 104 players who get in on ranking and the 16 qualifiers and 8 wild cards that make up the 128 singles draws.

The slams have done a lot to increase the prize money for the players at each event to around 60 million for each slam and the players in qualifying and losing first round get a lot more money than before. But we need to realise that even with this significant increase, the Grand Slams make over 800 million profits per year combined. My view is that they should, along with the ATP, WTA and ITF, be looking at ways to help and promote better these lower-ranked players, 150-300 (who have usually invested 20+ years to get to this level), to make a good living.

My suggestions for the Grand Slams are as follows:

• Make the grand slam singles a 256 draw with 32 byes for the seeded players. The seeded players will have the same conditions as now in having to play 7 matches to win. The level of the Grand Slam men’s and women’s qualifying is so high that they deserve to be seen and promoted better. I would still have a 64 draw qualifying with 16 spots reserved in the main draw. This system would see 224 players as “Grand Slam singles players” instead of 128. It would also ensure more nations are represented in the Grand Slam singles (currently the top 100 men and women only have 46 nations represented) which would create more interest in these extra countries represented. I am sure it would help the Grand Slams to have more international TV deals and more exposure globally. You could start the singles at Wimbledon on Sunday and move some matches in other events to later (see my next point).

• Start the men’s and ladies’ doubles on the second Monday and allow players that lose in the first three rounds to sign in on the middle Sunday (228 players would be out of singles if it’s a 256 draw as shown above and 112 if it’s a 128 draw). You could keep 16-24 places back for players who sign in to the 64-pair event. This would make the doubles draw much stronger and allow court space for the extra singles matches in the first week. By allowing some of the top singles players to play doubles if they lose in singles, the doubles will be more attractive to the spectators and TV viewers. At the US Open, the men’s doubles final takes place on Friday and is usually played in front of around 2000 spectators in a 25000 stadium. This needs to change.

• Introduce a playoff for third and fourth place with different prizemoney and points for third and fourth. This would allow the men’s 3rd/4th match to take place before the women’s final (possibly three sets with champions tie break for third set) and the women’s match to take place before the men’s final on center court or on court 1. The winning of a Bronze medal at a Grand Slam could be promoted and be seen in the future as a great achievement as is a bronze medal at the Olympics and world championships in other sports.

I have attended many Grand Slams during my 25 years at the ITF and usually, the last three to four days are very quiet with not so many pro matches for the public to watch. If the doubles started on Monday, there would be good doubles matches each day on outside courts until the end with some top singles players to watch.

The great thing about the Grand Slams is the tradition and I respect that. But the Grand Slams have also been in many ways the drivers of change in the sport (for example the introduction of pro tennis players into the slams in 1968) and I believe these changes proposed above would be good for tennis globally and for the Grand Slams.

Finally, I have an idea for the lower-level players ranked 301-700, that will potentially double their existing prizemoney. At the 15K and 25K events, I suggest to only give prizemoney for the quarter-finals and onwards for the singles and for the winner and runner-up in doubles. If you do this, the prizemoney of the players in these rankings will double with for example prizemoney of players ranked around 450 going from around $20,000 to $40,000 which will be enough to cover the costs of travelling without a coach.

I hope you find these ideas interesting. The bottom line to me is that the top 300 men and women should make a good living and it should be possible for the top 700 to break even. Let’s see what happens.

Dave was the person behind the ITF Tennis Play and Stay Campaign and the rule change for Ten and Under Tennis, approved in 2010. 

He has also authored seven coaching books. During his time at the ITF, he has traveled to over 140 nations and there are few people that know world tennis as well as him.

Today, Dave works as the Tennis Director for the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation (see photo below). He also regularly presents at coaching conferences, like the Australian Open Conference in Melbourne and the PTR conference in Hilton Head.

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