ITF Circuit Tours

I promised after the last blog entry that I would illustrate some of the ITF tours that take place around the world at different times of the year.  I will attempt to do as promised, along with the qualification that schedules do change every year and what I describe comes from experiential knowledge and may not be perfectly accurate.  I will also describe the changes that I know and have seen in these tours throughout the last couple of years.

Let’s start with the land down under, Australia!  Every year, usually, players have the option to go and try to pick up what they think might be “easy points” in Australia around September-November, and also around February-March.   I myself partook in a full six tournaments down under a couple of years ago. 

And then there is beautiful Mexico.  This schedule has changed, but it used to be like clockwork.  I got my start on the pro circuit playing the tournaments in the fall in Mexico—typically the qualifying draws are weaker there so if a player without a ranking wants to try and get a ranking, Mexico is the place to go in the fall.  They have about four $25,000 events in a row. 

This last year there was a very disappointing drop in the number of those tournaments, and the ones that still took place were down-sized to $10,000 prize money.  There are also a couple events in Mexico in various cities and states (yes, Mexico has states just like the USA) throughout the months of March-April, these have remained consistent and the prize money is around $25,000.

I can’t forget to include the USA, right?   In the fall, the USA has a hard court season that skips around the country location-wise.  San Francisco, Dallas, Albuquerque, Phoenix and Ashland, KY are just some of the city names where these events are held.  In the months of March-May there is a clay court tour in the Southeastern area of the USA.  These cities include Pelham, AL, Osprey, FL, Charlottesville, VA, and Jackson, MS.  Those are the two most consistent ‘tours’ in the USA throughout the year.

The summer in Europe is littered with tournaments in many different countries, and with many different prize money ranges.  France, Spain, Italy, and Germany are the countries that come to mind with groups of two or more tournaments in a row on a consistent basis during the months from June-July.

The fall is typically when two or more tournaments in the same country take place  in Asia-these tournaments are usually back to back, and take place-in Japan, China and Korea mostly. 

Throughout the year there are some random big tournaments in places like Dubai, or Moscow, or the Ukraine.  I say “random” because there are few tournaments during the year in those countries (I guess Dubai would be the exception there because they host a couple of WTA and ATP tournaments now).

So there we have it, a quick and simple sketch of common ITF tours that go on throughout the year. 

In the next entry I'll share a couple more funny stories!

Story    

Roadmap

Any profession has a kind of roadmap during any particular calendar year.  There are certain times when you look for certain things to happen and certain events to take place. 

For example, people who work at Macy’s have a very busy time during the holidays and their whole year can be made or lost depending on holiday sales.  College coaches in universities gear their teams up for peak performance during their season. 

One could see how a person’s professional roadmap determines a bit of his or her life’s roadmap—when one takes vacations, plans to have kids, takes a class or visits friends, etc.   Most likely a college coach would not plan a vacation to the Caribbean during his or her team’s season, just like somebody working for Macy’s would probably not plan a family trip during the winter holiday season-and this is applicable to any profession.

I would like to draw this ‘professional roadmap,’ for professional women’s tennis.  The schedule from year to year does not vary too much, despite the fact that players can choose their individual tournaments so probably what I describe now is similar to what was happening 5-7 years ago.   

One aspect I would like to point out about the tennis schedule before I begin is its particular non-stop nature compared to other sports like football and basketball.  Tennis players play from January straight through November, ever y single calendar year.  And from January to November the only kind of off season we get is off hard court season and onto clay court season, or off clay court season and onto grass court season.

As you read through the schedule, keep in mind the “micro-level” schedule as well; tournaments are either one week or two weeks long (grand slams and the ‘mini-slams’).  Qualifying starts from Saturday through Monday and main draws usually start from Monday-Wednesday. 

Refer back to your own life while you go through my roadmap; think about the things that you and the people you know are usually doing during the time when the tennis professionals are in a certain place.  Do you usually have time to relax in January?  In the summertime?  Do you get the weekends off?  

 When I describe the tennis player schedule to people they usually nod their heads, ‘OK,’ saying they understand, but if you think about the things you are usually doing while the tennis players are off competing, that is when one really comes to understand the reality of the lifestyle.   Maybe you have spring break, maybe it’s the kids’ winter break, or maybe it’s Super Bowl Sunday—chances are a tennis professional is on court competing during those typical holidays and they won’t get a break until November (the Super Bowl counts as a holiday, right??). 

I’ll start with our “off-season,” which starts around November.  That is usually the time when players can plan a vacation, visit home, and take some time off from working out and training.  Two to three weeks is probably the maximum time that anybody takes off from tennis, and once December comes around players start up training again.

In January, players who are top 250 around Christmas day or New Years are off to Australia to play the WTA tournaments around in that area of the world.  The rest of the players ranked below 250 do their best to pick up points in ITF Circuit tournaments—there are usually some tough 25K events in Florida around that time.

Right after Australia the Fed Cup takes place in various parts of the world, and then after that there is a sprinkling of worldwide ITF events and WTA events in places that reach as far and wide as Thailand, Paris and Dubai.  These events climax into the the bigger “mini-slams” like the Sony Ericsson in Miami and Indian Wells in California.   

Players migrate in late March/early April to Europe for the tournaments leading up to the French Open-both WTA and ITF-which marks the beginning of the clay court season.  The time and place where the largest number of tournaments are held around the world in any given week, including both ITF and WTA events, is in the summer in Europe starting from clay court season (April, May) and continuing through Wimbledon (July).   These tournaments in Europe are also typically very strong.

Summer is also the season for club matches and leagues in Europe, where players are paid by clubs in certain cities to play against other players from clubs in other cities.  There are club leagues in France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Croatia, and many more European countries.  It is not uncommon to play a weekend in a club, take a train and play a tournament starting on Tuesday, then on the weekend take a train back to the club and continue this pattern for a couple of weeks. 

The money can be very good, especially for players who don’t have a big name but do have a solid ranking.  Typically the clubs pay by match, and then they add a bonus for winning.  July is also World Team Tennis month so if a player is selected in the draft he/she travels a bit around the USA to compete along with his/her teammates.  WTT travel can be brutal in that multiple matches are scheduled per week and the total duration is about 7-8 weeks total.  Play, travel, play, travel= tired. 

After moving northwards from France to England for grass tournaments and Wimbledon in June the players migrate back to the USA to prepare for the US Open and play the WTA tournaments leading up to it.    

Lots of players are typically pretty tired at this point in the year-in my experience the US Open usually has the highest ranking qualifying cut-off because players pull out with injuries.  The Australian Open, comparatively, has the lowest ranking cutoff for the qualifying because players are fresh and ready to go at the beginning of the year and are less likely to pull out due to injury.

 After the US Open in August there are very few ITF circuits and WTA tournaments until the end of September.

From September until November there are tournaments in Asia and a couple WTA tournaments in Europe; this time of year is reminiscent to February because of the sprinkling of different level tournaments all over the world. 

Once November comes along, it’s time for some rest and relaxation, and the cycle starts again in January. 

 On the next blog I’ll talk about the ITF Circuit-specific tours- there are a couple consistent ones even though they do tend to shift a bit every year.  

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!!

Story