An article found on MYF (thanks Amelle).
Interesting to see how Marat cares about the low-ranked players...
Published in Tennis Magazine Polska (for April).
"Future is black"
Marat Safin said it's more difficult to get through quallification to the futures, than to win a Grand Slam. Yes - futures, satellites are the tournaments where the only law is the law of jungle. Only the best will survive.
Beginning of 1990's. Spain. The five-person French team, including famous in his times Jerome Golmard, postion themselves in a small hotel chamber. They will be playing tennis in the next week of Spanish satellite circuit. Maybe they will earn some money, because the only warm food they can afford is a roasted chicken and french fries. Silence on the courts. The only audience is made by members of other teams. Courts are unprepared and slippery. There are no umpires, players are the ones who judge the place of ball-landing. Some imagine, that the distance of the country of their living and the country of the tournament should provide them bonus points: Dusan Prchlik during the match shouts to his opponent, French Stefan Andriolo: "I came to Spain from the Czech Republic and you only from France! I deserve to win!". But it was the Frenchman who won, and in previous round he had defeated his compatriot, Frederic Vitoux (newly healed victim of stomach disease epidemy from the tournament in Malaysia).
Satellite tournaments were introduced to tennis calendar by ITF (International Tennis Federation) in 1976, to enable the young players to collect their first points. First circuits included five tournaments played in one area week after week, and the money prize was 3.000$ in each. Times changed, inflacy increased and money prize remained the same. In 1990 ITF put changes in action: since then in one country there were played three tournaments (6.250$ in each), finished with 'masters' (pathetic name for this level) for the best players, with the same money gratification. The amount of gained points depends on number of won matches, but in fact only the winner of the circuit can be satisfied with the hunt (Juan Carlos Ferrero won once even 66 ATP points), the rest is not commensurate with the earned money, or rather... costs involved. The player must pay for the hotel and the food himself. In spite of this, there are many seeking their chance. In every week of currently played satellite circuit in Venezuela, the main draw is for 32 and the quallification draw is for 64 players. Any points and money will probably go, like everywhere else, to 20-25 of them.
To avoid the situations like from the text's beginning (which were on daily schedule then), ITF, along with satellites, came up in 1998 with the futures circuit. Futures, in free translation "turniej przyszłości", in assumption had to be an institution to help the youngsters in faster climb in rankings. In practise, next to the juniors, the 20- and 30-something aged players participate, as they are whether too weak for performing in challengers, or who above their unexpectable sometimes talent, put the unexpectable fun (which cancells possibilities of serious trainings and matches). Futures are played in three tournament series in one country (each with 10.000$ money prize - victory is awarded by 12 points, final by , or only two, but the prize must be 15.000$ then (victory - 18 points, final - 12 points). Very few tournaments, mainly in France, add "hospitality" - which means free food and hotel. They also give more points: for winning there is 24 points and for the final - 16. All kind of futures events are connected by the fact that loss in first round is point-free, and the second round appearance gives only 1 point. Now the sentence by Marat Safin about difficulties for beginning players is getting more sense. Safin started career in Spain himself, where to get to the main draw of the futures, one must win four matches in eliminations (it still doesn't guarantee a single point). In the USA it's very similar.
In 2007 satellites are about to disappear from ITF calendar, because they can't guarantee life at human level to the players. And the futures circuit can?
Beginning of new millenium, Szczecin, Poland. Place of action: parking near the courts. Morning, sun is shining, and from the vehicle resembling the hybryd of the trailer and hearse (supposedly to be a bus) are rolling the sleepy Russian players and they are beginning the research after any sink with water, needed to morning toilet. After few minutes, all passers-by admire the sportsmen cleaning their teeth between the trees. To reduce costs of a living (loss in first round of the futures with prize 10.000$ is 118$... prices of hotels shouldn't be mentioned at all, besides - entry fee is up to 30$), incessantly trusting in the sporting destination players with different level of talent or parents' wallet, invent the surprising methods of saving up. There are known examples of female players sleeping in the car boot (!!!), but not many can compete with the group of American players, who silently got to the gym in one hotel, put the card "closed until called off" and they slept on the floor. However, despite the ability of not-exactly legal practising on high-class gym equimpement, they lost in the quallification. They can be beaten only by the Frenchman, Cedric Roelant. Living in a hotel and wanting to avoid payment, he called for taxi with a wish to stop at the back door. But the taxi stopped at the front. The disorientated Frenchmen, keeping all his baggage in hand, started rushing to the taxi in front of the receptionist's eyes.
If ones want to fairly pay, while having no money, then the trick is to pack as many people to one room as possible. The record belongs to Polish players in Estonia, led by current top-doubles specialist Mariusz Fyrstenberg. In the small chamber there were ten men living, plus the tennis bags. The same players (next week of Baltic circuit) have even more traumatic memories, this time from Latvia. Because the reception wanted 100 Euro from one person, invaluable was the friend of Piotr Szczepanik, who was working at the hotel, and helped to get a room in household place (20 Euro from person), where on pure concrete floor were lying three mattresses. Bedclothes were called to be not used due to hygenic state. The shower was a bent pipe. Walls were covered with mould (EXCUSE ME - is it a good word for GRZYB from Polish?) and pipes, which at night were used by rats to climb (faster than players in ranking). Almighty irony, Fyrstenberg reached the final there so he had to live in such conditions for the whole week! Not needing to go to African interior to seek the points and risk the life, three years ago in Belarus, another Polish player Michał Kwiecień played an event in the city called as "better don't go out to the street", and he spent the whole night at the railway station, because two scheduled trains... passed and didn't stop! The young Chilean player Paul Capdeville (knocking to the top 100) moved through whole South America by train and recalls he was praying all the time to be not robbed.
Life at futures level is not only the problem with lodging, it's also the necessity of hmm... ORGANIZING the gear. So if the chance of borrowing balls provided by sponsor of the tournament comes across, players around the globe switch them, giving back their old, used balls. Another example - once during the match Novak Djokovic (Serbia and Montenegro) broke his shoe lace and didn't have more, so he asked the people in the stands for help. The one who reacted was Ana Ivanovic. She took a lace from her own shoe. Sharing equipement is also a Polish speciality. During this year's Wrocław futures event, Michał Przysiężny lightly damaged his racquet, throwing it at the wall. "What are you doing, what now Paweł Syrewicz will play in Zabrze with?! He was to get that racquet!" - cried the coach, evidently not satisfied with the sincere answer: "I was targeting the curtain". Throwing racquets and using curse words are also punished at this level. One time curse usually makes around 15 dollars, but the direct fine depends on the umpire or supervisor, if he heard it (quallifications are umpired very rarely). In opposite case, the player is lucky, just like Frederik Sletting-Johnsen in Wrocław , who after lost match full of antics, tried to demolish a ladies (!!!) toilet. The same 19-y.o. Norwegian played in Zabrze against one year older Frenchman Antoine Tassart for entering the main draw. The youngsters were calling each other in bad way for the few times, to jump to each other's throat at the end of the last set. Good that one umpire was walking nearby, to take the place at the chair and help the match to be finished.
Where do such players take money for travels around the globe from? Not everybody is as lucky as 17-yeared talented Parisien, Adrian Mannarino. Despite the fact the solely journey to Wrocław was his second abroad travel, he practises in club in Paris in good conditions, the French Federation helps him a bit and most of all, he has asigned contract with Lacoste. In most cases, there are parents who take things in their hands, like at Martin Verkerk's, who before started putting attention to solid game and participated in Roland Garros final, was partying for rich father's money (as he confesses in interviews), at the future level. Opposite, parents of Younes El Aynaoui were objecting his starts, so without support, he had to clean gyms and be a bus driver to earn money to be a professional player. An Argentine, Agustin Calleri had to sell wine in his father's shop to make his father agree on sponsoring the travels on the South American circuit. The son was grateful - he earned almost 2,5 mln dollars on courts. And even if the current quaterfinalist of Roland Garros, Romanian Victor Hanescu, earned a million dollars, he is still paying back the firm, which agreed to help him in the beginnings of career. Hanescu confessed at the press conference in Sopot that he was still living in a small flat in Bucharest. In the end, there is a possibility of earning money like Brent Kilray (USA). The finishing second faculty "player", who is blogging on the internet, teaches tennis children of rich people, and packs the money in trips to exotic in his opinion places, to play the quallification. Also in Poland. He boasts that he knows phone numbers to Polish sexual agencies, and his dream is to earn enough in blackjack to buy a Wild Card to challenger in Bogota and gain the beloved one ATP point. And the tour also is full of players like him.
N.M., Wrocław, 20th March 2006
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