Life on Tour With Jean-Yves Aubone May 2015 Update #7 The Costs of Living the Dream
Jean-Yves Aubone, Tennis Atlantic
From ATP/WTA Sydney 2014, qualifiers had to pay for water and tennis balls
In this blog I will present a breakdown of my income and expenses in various categories for the year of 2013 and 2014. They are the only years so far where I played professionally from the beginning of the year up until the end. I did not write this blog based on my opinion on how well tennis players do or do not get paid. I wrote this so that you may form your own opinion based on numerical facts rather than assumptions.
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2013
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2014
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Total Prize Money
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$9,637
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$12,101
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Singles Prize Money
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$5,695
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$9,260
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Singles Tournaments Played
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26
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24
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Average Income Per Singles Event
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$219
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$386
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Doubles Prize Money
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$3,942
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$2,841
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Doubles Tournaments Played
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16
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15
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Average Income Per Doubles Event
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$246
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$189
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Year End Singles Ranking
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679
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484
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Year End Doubles Ranking
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307
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419
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Expenses
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2013
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2014
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Food/Meals/Groceries
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$10,390
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$12,898
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Tournament Fees
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$400
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$440
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Racquet/Tennis Gear
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$2,158
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$2,463
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Coaching/Training
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$6,995
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$5,900
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Gas
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$2,337
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$2,523
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Transportation
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$5,137
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$2,986
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Hotels
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$4,843
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$2,435
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Total Expenses
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$32,259
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$29,950
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Net Income
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-$22,622
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-$17,849
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Some things to keep in mind when evaluating my expenses:
Tournament fees – In order to play in professional events, a membership is required. Therefore, the tournament fees include my ITF IPIN membership and ATP Playerzone membership so that I can register for events. This expense section also covers whatever entry fee I have to pay at events to play.
Racquet/tennis gear – Includes racquet stringing. For the second half of 2014 I purchased a Pro Stringer. It’s a portable stringing machine so that I can string my own racquets and not have to pay to get them strung. For 2013 and 2014 I was sponsored by Babolat, therefore I did not have to pay for my own racquets, racquet bags, or strings. I did not have a clothing sponsor at the time.
Racquet customization companies like Priority One charge thousands for their services to pros.
Coaching/training – Includes any kind of physical therapist or doctor I need to see. Also, I only travel with a coach to a tournament a few times a year. It’s too expensive. I only work with a coach a few months out of the year when I’m training in Atlanta at Ginepri Performance Tennis. When I’m there I work out a special rate with my coaches so it’s not too expensive. They deserve to get paid more but are kind enough to help me. The same goes for my fitness trainer.
Transportation – these items are air fares and car rentals to and from tournaments. The 2014 amount was lower vs 2013 one because I was able to drive to more tournaments.
Hotels – This amount was lower in 2014 vs 2013 because I was able to play tournaments where I could stay at a friend’s house.
It should be noted that these are not ALL of my expenses. They are only my tennis related expenses. I did not include my health insurance, car insurance, car payment, rent/utilities, cell phone and anything that I spend on recreational activities such as going to the movies or playing golf.
Food for Thought:
The minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 an hour. A person working on average 40 hours a week is typically considered a full time employee. A full time employee working on minimum wage earns $15,080. Last year I finished the year ranked as the 484th best professional tennis player in the world in singles. Not including doubles, I earned $9,260.
Tennis Atlantic 
What can I say? First, congratulations for having the nerve to do something than anybody already did: writing a journal saying things that maybe nobody would dare to say.Second, those figures show
how the unfair the system is. I think one way of improve these things is to apply some compulsory contribution drawn from the earnings of the top 10, 50, 100 whoever players to give to the rest of the players, say, in 1000 position
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I am always curious about medical expenses. What kind of health insurance professional tennis players get? Maybe you are under the French system with universal health care, but how about US players?
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For anyone ranked 500 or better you can sign up for the ATP health insurance which is very good, but you still have to pay something. For anyone outside of that ranking, you are on your own and need get individual insurance.
And I play for the USA. Born and raised in Miami #teamUSA
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I’m a huge follower of tennis, particularly the lower levels. I follow all the Futures/Challenger results closely and attend about 10 tourneys a year (+a few ATP). The main issue that I have with the complaints about the high cost/low return of the Futures tour is that it is only supposed to be a stepping stone for players to move up to Challengers and then hopefully the main tour. Unfortunately for Jean-Yves, he is 27 years old and still playing Futures because he is simply not good enough to make it as a professional tennis player for a living. 3 Singles titles and only 2 main draw Challenger matches is not the resume of somebody that should be committing their full-time life to being a tennis player.
This may sound a bit harsh, but it is the reality. I totally respect and admire him for working so hard to get better and hopefully move up in the rankings, but to be at this stage of a career at 27 (which is only about 5 years from retirement for even the top players) is not good. I have seen Aubone play before several times live, and he just doesn’t have what it takes to make a living off of being a tennis player. Perhaps taking some time off to either play club tennis in Europe or coaching makes more financial sense, as well as focusing on improving his game. A recent success story is that of Andre Ghem, who at around 27 stopped focusing on being a full-time player and made money coaching, playing club tennis, etc. and once he had saved enough and improved his level of play, joined the tour again around age 30. He is now financially stable, at a career high ranking and playing today to make the MD of the FO. That alone will net him about 30k, even to lose in the 1st round.
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Jay P,
Thanks for your comment and I agree with most of what you’re saying. The reason I’m still playing is because I took two full years off of tennis after college. In my head, I have the fresh body of a 24 year old. Because of that I look at my career as someone who has missed a lot of time, rather than as one who has been playing his whole life. If I played straight out of college, and were at this very same ranking at the age of 27, I would have stopped.
As far as my ability to make it, I obviously disagree 🙂 but thanks for coming out and watching me play. I look forward to proving you wrong one day.
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This is excellent, I think the idea is that nobody (including you) are going for it to make $9k a year or whatever. The idea is to pay your dues for a few years, and hope to halve your ranking each year. I recently watched a program here in Spain which discussed this very thing and said that the most difficult years are between aged 17 and 22 when you’re grinding it out on the ITF with a few ATP (or WTA) tournaments here and there. We have a competitive junior and spend WAY more than this a year, and there is no prize money yet! 🙂 ALL THE BEST OF LUCK TO YOU!!! 🙂
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Jordan I like your observations please send me your contacts need more info
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Nice article about the hardships of pro life. Would be nice if the bloated $$$ of the Usta would give a $50,000 annual stipend to any player who finished the year ranked between 200 and 600. Instead they pay their CEOs $8million/yr and the TV announcer Patrick McEnroe was bilking $1million/yr from them the past several years.
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