Prize money – Heavy Topspin

October 21, 1973: Broken Records

The singles final of the Virginia Slims Championships in Boca Raton, pitting home favorite Chris Evert against hard-hitting veteran Nancy Gunter, was scheduled for 3:00 in the afternoon on October 21st. By 12:30, the grandstand was packed.

The excitement wasn’t all thanks to Evert, Florida’s teen sensation. The circuit-ending Slims event had been on shaky ground just a few days before, with Margaret Court falling ill and Billie Jean King a no-show. But on finals day, there were plenty of reasons to turn out for the tennis instead of staying home to watch the Dolphins on TV.

Court had withdrawn from the singles, but after a brief hospital visit for a stomach ailment, she elected to enter the doubles. A suitable partner was available in Rosie Casals, who would have teamed with Billie Jean had she made the trip. It was quite the scratch duo: Margaret was the game’s dominant force in singles, and Casals was–with the possible exception of King–the circuit’s strongest doubles player. Between them, Court and Casals had won 20 doubles titles in 1973 alone.

That’s why the crowd turned out early: The doubles final made for a particularly appetizing opener. The last-minute pair had scuffled in the early going, but they made it through three tight matches. In the final, against the top-seeded team of Françoise Dürr and Betty Stöve, Court and Casals finally synced up and whipped their fellow veterans, 6-2, 6-4.

Court’s share of the winnings came to “only” $2,000. Her full-season tally amounted to $202,000, a new best for a female athlete in any sport.

Evert set a record that day, too. She came into the final seeking to end the “hex” that Gunter held on her, in the form of a 5-0 head-to-head record. (“It never really was a hex,” said Chrissie.) After 85 minutes of slugging from the baseline and a few wind-aided, spirit-sapping drop shots, Evert broke the spell, 6-3, 6-3. She picked up a check for $25,000, pushing her own total to $123,000, the highest-ever sum for a first-year professional.

It was a sign of just how fast the game had grown. Just two years earlier, Billie Jean had become the first woman athlete to earn $100,000 in a season. King almost reached the mark again in 1973 despite her struggles with injury, and she cleared another $100,000 from the Battle of the Sexes. Evert would finish the year with more than $150,000, and both Casals and Evonne Goolagong would break six figures.

The sums on offer were so mind-boggling–at least compared to the prize money of years past–that the leading women could afford to say no. Billie Jean had been ready to boycott both Wimbledon and the US Open for the cause of equal prize money, and she skipped the Slims Championships despite its own record-breaking $110,000 purse.

Now, Madame Superstar wasn’t the only leading lady with the freedom to choose. Evert merely scoffed when Bobby Riggs, in town for the pro-celebrity event before the Slims Championships began, challenged her to a $100,000 match, winner-take-all. “Let Rosie play him,” she said–she had a reputation to protect. For an 18-year-old superstar at the dawn of the Open era, $123,000 was only the beginning.

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This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.

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May 15, 1973: Changing of a Guard

The pace of the tennis calendar in 1973 was unremitting. After the Australian Open, most of the best men played the 15-week World Championship Tennis slate. While the WCT point leaders convened for the tour finals in Montreal and Dallas, many of the others scattered around the globe to play Davis Cup. With one week to go before the start of the French Open, a bit of rest and recuperation must have been in order.

Except… Tennis-loving comedian Alan King set up a tournament at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, to be run by the semi-retired Richard González. Glitz, glamour, and–oh yes–a record-setting $150,000 in prize money. The winner would walk away with $30,000.

Who could say no to that? Aside from European stars committed to play Davis Cup on the Continent, the answer was, approximately, no one. Stan Smith and Arthur Ashe, the last two men standing at the WCT Finals in Dallas, showed up. Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, too. John Newcombe, who had skipped the WCT circuit in favor of leading the Australian Davis Cup team through its preliminary rounds in Asia, rejoined the fray.

The Vegas event marked a transition for the men’s tour. It was the first tournament run under the auspices of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the players’ organization founded the previous September. Until that point, the best players typically competed under contract to a circuit, like billionaire Lamar Hunt’s WCT tour. The alternative was to register as an independent pro and play at events sponsored by national federations around the world. The latter course offered more flexibility, but the real money was in the contracts. Thanks to WCT, Laver was a millionaire, and Smith was $50,000 richer after winning the 1973 Finals.

The ATP didn’t set out to displace the WCT, and it wouldn’t do so anytime soon. The primary goal was to give athletes a bigger say in the running of the sport. It would shift the balance away from the national federations that had controlled players’ fates in the amateur era. Those organizations, together with their parent group, the International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF), clung to whatever authority they could.

No federations were involved in the making of the $150,000 Alan King/Caesar’s Palace Tennis Classic.

Whatever independence players could achieve, they could not free themselves from the realities of the calendar. On May 15th, top seed Smith lost his opening match to journeyman South African Ray Moore. The same day, second seed Laver fell to big-serving countryman Dick Crealy, crashing out in a 6-0 third set.

“It’s like playing Forest Hills the week after Wimbledon,” Smith said of the Dallas-to-Vegas transition. It was worse than that: Most of the events of the previous four months had been held indoors. Matches in Vegas were outdoors in 95-degree heat.

Laver had an even better excuse. The 34-year-old was physically spent. After coping for weeks with a back injury that hampered his normally awe-inspiring serve, he didn’t trust his body to make his usual service motion. Against Crealy, he missed more first serves than he made.

For the first time in 15 years, the man needed a break. He told the press after the match that he would take “a few months off.” He would miss the French, the Italian, and quite possibly Wimbledon as well.

The Las Vegas first round claimed one more victim of note: Niki Pilić, the 33-year-old veteran from Yugoslavia. He had opted to chase the $150,000 instead of playing Davis Cup against New Zealand in Zagreb. When Pilić lost in straight sets to American Cliff Richey, no one paid much heed. There wasn’t much interest in the new players’ association, either.

That would change. Within a month, the Yugoslavian and the rebels of the ATP would be the biggest names in tennis.

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May 3, 1973: Chasing $30,000

The Family Circle Cup wasn’t officially a circuit-ending championship, like the men’s WCT doubles finals in Montreal the same week, or the WCT singles finals in Dallas the week after. But it might as well have been. The Virginia Slims women’s tour settled its conflict with the USLTA just in time for 16 of the best players in the world to compete for record-setting prizes.

For Margaret Court, it was her final tournament before taking on Bobby Riggs in a much-anticipated exhibition. Billie Jean King was healthy again, and she no longer had to worry about fighting an international legal battle just to enter Wimbledon. Chris Evert and Evonne Goolagong remained outside the Slims fold, but this week even offered an apparent Evert clone: 17-year-old Floridian Laurie Fleming. Fleming won four qualifying rounds, then demolished veteran Julie Heldman for a place in the quarter-finals.

A likely Court-King final was nothing new: The two women had been facing off for more than a decade. This week’s story was the prize pot that one of the stars would take home. This wasn’t just the Family Circle Cup, it was the $100,000 Family Circle Cup, with a $30,000 check for the singles winner. No women’s tennis tournament had ever offered such a rich reward. In fact, it was the biggest prize in the history of women’s sports altogether.

Most of the 16 ladies in Hilton Head had been competing for years with five-figure stakes on the line. But this was something different. They could be forgiven a few jitters this week.

On May 2nd, the first day of play, the nerves-of-steel award went to Nancy (Richey) Gunter, a 30-year-old veteran with two major titles to her name. In the first round, she drew Frenchwoman Françoise Dürr. Dürr had come through qualifying and had vast experience on slow surfaces like the South Carolina clay. After a see-saw battle, Dürr reached match point in the third set. Gunter saved it–and two more–to force a tiebreak. The Frenchwoman came close again in the sudden-death, first-to-five-pointer, taking a 4-2 lead. But Gunter, perhaps the strongest baseliner in the women’s game, cracked three winners in a row to fend off Dürr and advance to the quarters.

Not for nothing did Cliff Richey–Gunter’s brother and a top player himself–say that Rafael Nadal reminded him of Nancy.

Waiting in the round of eight was top seed Margaret Court. The Australian had dominated Gunter for years, winning 11 of 12 since 1965, including their last five meetings. But after dispatching 16-year-old Kathy Kuykendall in the first round, Court came down with a cold. Three victories away from a financial windfall and ten days ahead of her match with Riggs, Margaret’s body betrayed her.

On May 3rd, a sluggish Court dropped the first set to Gunter, 7-5. She mustered the energy to even the score with a 6-1 second set, then grabbed a 2-0 edge in the third. Just when she had secured the momentum, leg cramps struck. She stalled so much that umpire Mike Blanchard threatened a default. Margaret’s husband Barry told a reporter, “She’ll stay in there until she gets cramps on her hands.” He recommended that she play without shoes to improve her circulation. Through some combination of socks, stalling, and sheer stubbornness, Court reached 5-2, 40-15 on her own serve.

For the second day in a row, Gunter played her best with her back to the wall. She saved the match points, and after breaking the Australian’s serve, didn’t allow her another game. Court was in no shape to compete; it just took Nancy a little while to react appropriately. The American took the match by a final score of 7-5, 6-1, 7-5.

Gunter’s victory earned her a substantially bigger chunk of that $100,000 prize pool, along with a semi-final date with third-seed Kerry Melville. King and Rosie Casals comfortably advanced to fill out the final four. While Court was optimistic that her illness would pass, she would have to head to California–and her date with Bobby Riggs–on a losing streak.

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Is Grand Slam Qualifying Worth Tanking For?

Italian translation at settesei.it

Earlier today in Hobart, Naomi Osaka lost her second-round match to Mona Barthel. Coming into the match, she was in a tricky position: If she won, she wouldn’t be able to play Australian Open qualifying. For a young player outside the top 100, a tour-level quarterfinal would be nice, but presumably Melbourne was intended to be the centerpiece of her trip to Australia.

Since she lost the match, she’ll be able to play qualifying. But what if she hadn’t? Is this a situation in which a player would benefit from losing a match?

Put another way: In a position like Osaka’s, what are the incentives? If she could choose between the International-level quarterfinal and the Slam qualifying berth, which should she pick? Or, put more crassly, should a player in this position tank?

Let’s review the scenarios. In scenario A, Osaka wins the Hobart second-rounder, reaches the quarterfinal, and has a chance to go even further. She can’t play the Australian Open in any form. In scenario B, she loses the second-rounder, enters Melbourne qualifying and has a chance to reach the main draw.

Before we go through the numbers, take a guess: Which scenario is likely to give Osaka more ranking points? What about prize money?

Scenario A is more straightforward. By reaching the quarterfinals, she earns 30 additional ranking points and US$2,590 beyond what a second-round loser makes. Beyond that, we need to calculate “expected” points and prize money, using the amounts on offer for each round and combining them with her odds of getting there.

Let’s estimate that Osaka would have about a 25% chance of winning her quarterfinal match and earning an additional 50 points and $5400. In expected terms, that’s 12.5 points and $1,350. If she progresses, we’ll give her a 25% chance of reaching the final, then in the final, a 15% chance of winning the title.

Adding up these various possibilities, from her guaranteed QF points to her 0.94% chance (25%*25%*15*) of winning the Hobart title, we see that her expected rewards in scenario A are roughly 48 ranking points and just under $4,800.

Scenario B starts in a very different place. Thanks to the recent increases in Grand Slam prize money, every player in the qualifying takes home at least US$3,150. That’s already close to Osaka’s expected financial reward from advancing in Hobart. The points are a different story, though: First-round qualifying losers only get 2 WTA ranking points.

I’ll spare you all the calculations for scenario B, but I’ve assumed that Osaka would have a 70% chance of winning qualifying round 1, a 60% chance of winning QR2, and a 50% chance of winning QR3 and qualifying. Those might be a little bit high, but if they are, consider it compensation for the possibility that she’ll reach the main draw as a lucky loser. (Also, if we knock her chances all the way down to 50%, 45%, and 40%, the conclusions are the same, even if the points and prize money in scenario B are quite a bit lower.)

Those estimated probabilities translate into an expectation of about 23 ranking points and US$11,100. Osaka isn’t guaranteed any money beyond the initial $3,150, but the rewards for qualifying are enormous, especially compared to the prize money in Hobart. A first-round main draw loser in Melbourne takes home more money than the losing finalist does in Hobart.

And, of course, if she does qualify, there’s a chance she’ll go further. Since 2000, female Slam qualifiers have reached the second round 41% of the time, the third round 9% of the time, the fourth round 1.8% of the time, and the quarterfinals 0.3% of the time. Those odds, combined with her 21% chance of reaching the main draw in the first place, translate into an additional 7 expected ranking points and $2,600 in prize money.

All told, scenario B gives us 30 expected ranking points and US$13,600 in expected prize money.

The Slam option results in far more cash, while the International route is worth more ranking points. In the long term, those ranking points would have some financial value, possible earning Osaka entry into a few higher-level events than she would otherwise qualify for. But that value probably doesn’t overcome the nearly $9,000 gap in immediate prize money.

I hope that no player ever tanks a match at a tour-level event so they can make it in time for Slam qualifying. But if one does, we’ll at least understand the logic behind it.

A Quarter of Missing Challengers

The ATP Challenger calendar (PDF) has been released for the first quarter of 2013, and it looks mighty thin.

In the next three months, we can expect 21 challenger events, compared to 30 in Q1 2012 and 33 in Q1 2011. (Thanks to Foot Soldiers of Tennis for raising the issue.) For those challenger fans among us, that’s clearly bad news. Less competitive tennis always is. It could also hurt many up-and-coming players, which means it should concern all fans of men’s tennis.

For the last twenty years, challenger tennis has generally been on the rise, with 147 tournaments at that level last year compared to only 88 in 1992. The number peaked in 2007 and 2008 with 173 and 175 challenger events, respectively.

However, while the challenger circuit has grown in size and importance, the ATP tour has shrunk. Most of that movement occurred more than a decade ago. The tour has remained steady with between 65 and 67 events each year since 2002. As recently as 1994, though, there were 90 ATP events, which offered 36% more main draw places than did 2012’s 65 tournaments.

In other words, the growth of the challenger tour hasn’t substantially expanded opportunities for players outside the sport’s elite, it has simply filled the gap left by all those missing ATP events. The number of challengers increased by 35% from 1992 to 2002, but the number of main draw places in ATP and challenger tourneys combined rose by only 6%. Account for the reduction of tour-level qualifying events, and you probably have a net loss in point- and money-earning opportunities for tour pros.

The following five years brought the explosion of challengers noted above, but the pullback to 2012’s level of 65 ATP and 147 challenger events has reduced the field to only 7432 total main draw places, a 9.5% increase over ten years earlier.

A 10% jump over the course of a decade may be enough to keep pace with the global spread of tennis, but it won’t be if the current downward trend persists.

That’s the reason for concern. 21 first-quarter challengers represents a 30% decrease from 2012. Drop 30% of the challenger events from the entire 2012 calendar, and you have only 103 events, the lowest number since 1996, where there were 97 challengers but a whopping 84 tour-level tournaments.

The ripple effect

So, when the size of the top-tier tennis world shrinks, who suffers?

Small as these paydays are, when the number of challenger-tour paydays drops, some fringe-level players earn fewer of them. The relevant “fringe” here is the ranking range between 200 and 300, the guys who often make the main draw cut of a challenger when there were two or three in one week, but are relegated to a futures or (unpaid) qualifying draw when there is only one.

Less obvious is that even the top-ranked challenger-level contenders suffer. Fewer tournaments generally means more travel–that is, greater travel expenses. For Roger Federer, that’s just a different balance on his NetJets account. For Diego Schwartzman, it means more weeks where he loses money playing competitive tennis, and fewer upper-level events that are feasible opportunities for him.

Needless to say, there are far more Schwartzmans than there are Federers.

And that brings us to the groups that really get hurt when the tennis calendar shrinks: Those who pay many of their own costs and those who don’t live in hotbeds of tennis.

Players who are heavily supported by the USTA might object to additional flight time, but they don’t feel the pain of travel expenses. Someone who can easily reach the plethora of challenger events in Western Europe will find it easy to reach plenty of playing opportunities. An up-and-comer in the the US and Australia will get just as many wild cards as he would have five or ten years ago.

But competitors from much of South America, the Balkans, and the former USSR often do not have any of those things going for them. With every loss of a net-profitable playing opportunity, those guys are a little less likely to stick with professional tennis. If Gregoire Burquier decided to pack it in, most tennis fans wouldn’t notice. But what about the next Radek Stepanek, who ten years ago was within a whisker of running out of money and hanging up the racquet?

Let’s hope the decrease in challengers early in 2013 is a blip, not a trend. It isn’t something anyone will talk about in the next big debate about prize money, but the quality of tennis and all professional levels depends on it.