When Liam Broady reached the third round of Wimbledon in 2023, the British number five revealed he had been sleeping in his car at Challenger events two years earlier to save on hotel costs. His story is not unusual. On the ITF World Tennis Tour and the Challenger circuit – the two tiers feeding the ATP and WTA tours – players ranked between 200 and 1,000 in the world routinely run weekly losses, share twin rooms with rivals they will face the next morning, and travel without coaches, physios or hitting partners.
The economics are stark. A first-round loss at an ITF M15 tournament – the entry-level professional event – pays around $215 before tax. Flights, accommodation, stringing, food and tournament entry fees for a single week routinely exceed $1,500. The break-even point, according to a 2023 ITF study, sits at world number 336 for men and 253 for women. Roughly 80 per cent of professional players lose money every year.
The hidden cost of the rankings climb
Marcus Willis, who briefly captured global attention by qualifying for Wimbledon in 2016 from a world ranking of 772, has described driving from Loughborough to tournaments in Sharm El Sheikh and Antalya via budget airlines, then sleeping in shared dormitories at Egyptian and Turkish ITF venues. “You’re paying to lose, basically,” Willis said in a BBC interview earlier this year. “I knew lads who slept in the courtesy car park because the hotel was £90 a night and the prize money for losing in qualifying was £40.”
For those without national federation funding, the maths is brutal. The LTA’s pro scholarship programme supports around 25 British players a year; the French Fédération Française de Tennis funds closer to 60. Most countries fund fewer than ten. A British player outside the top 250 receives no centralised travel grant and must self-finance every trip. Crowdfunding pages have become commonplace – Jodie Burrage raised £8,000 through GoFundMe in 2021 before breaking into the WTA top 100, and Czech doubles specialist Denisa Hindova ran a similar campaign in 2024 to fund a six-week swing through South American Challengers.
Sleeping in vans, sharing with strangers
The transit van is now a recognised feature of European Challenger life. American journeyman Noah Rubin, ranked as high as 125, drove a converted Ford across the Italian and Spanish $25k circuits in 2022 and posted regular updates from supermarket car parks. British player Jay Clarke shared accommodation with seven other players in a three-bedroom Airbnb during the Egyptian winter swing in 2024 – cutting his weekly cost from $900 to $180.
Room-sharing creates its own pressures. Players have described being drawn against their roommate in singles, then warming up together that morning. Stringers at smaller events charge $25 a racket; many players string their own to save money, sleeping on courtside benches between matches to guard their equipment. Hitting partners are unaffordable below world number 150, so practice is arranged informally on WhatsApp groups – the most active, “ITF Hits”, has more than 600 members across the men’s and women’s tours.
- ITF M15 first-round loser prize money: approximately $215
- Average weekly cost on tour: $1,500-$2,000
- Break-even ranking: 336 (men), 253 (women)
- Players losing money annually: roughly 80 per cent
- Cost of stringing one racket at a Challenger: $25-$35
Reform, slowly
The ATP’s Baseline programme, launched in 2024, guarantees players ranked between 101 and 175 a minimum annual income of $200,000, with reduced guarantees down to world number 250. The WTA introduced a similar scheme in 2025. Both have been welcomed but criticised for stopping where the financial cliff is steepest – the 250-to-1,000 bracket, where the majority of professional players sit. The PTPA, co-founded by Novak Djokovic in 2020, filed an antitrust lawsuit in March 2025 partly over the disparity between grand slam revenues and lower-tier prize money. A ruling is expected before the 2027 Australian Open.
The transit-van generation is unlikely to disappear soon. Wimbledon’s 2026 qualifying prize money for a first-round loser is £19,000 – more than most ITF players will earn in a full season. The gap between the top of the sport and its working professionals remains, by some measures, wider than in any other major individual sport. For the players sleeping in car parks and sharing beds with their next opponent, the climb continues one $215 cheque at a time.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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