Once upon a time, two years ago in a snowy land (at that time of year in February) called Midland, Michigan, two girls signed up to play doubles in a professional tournament. They each had played pro for about three years after college, and they went straight into the draw easily because they were both ranked relatively high. One of the girls was a very accomplished singles player. The girls won their doubles match-a night match-on the first day of the tournament against the former #1 college NCAA Champion and a top 200 doubles player.
The accomplished singles player played her singles match the next day, and lost a tight 6-3 in the third to a player ranked 130 in the world. However, all was not smooth—she hurt her knee in the second set and had to call the trainer to court to tape her up. The next day she could not walk-she told her doubles partner who was already out of singles that she had to withdraw because she could not play with her injured knee, much to the dismay of her partner.
The uninjured partner (me) got ready to go to the next stop, get my prize money and my plane ticket off to the next destination. During that process I received a phone call from my injured partner who, in a voice of dismay, anger and disbelief says, “They are not going to give us our prize money or our points for doubles because I withdrew.” I discussed it with her a little bit, but to no avail because she insisted that this was the information that had been given her by the tournament supervisor.
Of course I went and talked to the tournament supervisor myself. She promptly whips out an ITF Rulebook and reads a rule which, in a nutshell, states that any player who withdraws from an ITF event in the second round of the doubles automatically gets the points and prize money only from the first round-the second round points and money were essentially stripped and taken away. As if we had never come out victorious in a legitimate, officiated ITF sanctioned match and beaten a top 200 girl in the world and the former NCAA Champion the day before. Say whaaaaat?!
Now, being a player I know and feel very deeply how much every tournament counts, especially this tournament, being a 75K which is the second largest ITF event there is. And when I say this tournament counts it’s because I compare it to the other option of winning a smaller event and getting less points and less money than I would have gotten for just the first round win in that 75K tournament. You don’t have to play for points and money as a living to understand the importance of doing well at bigger tournaments, it’s pretty logical how that all works.
I raised hell—I wrote the ITF and demanded an explanation and a waiver of the fines imposed on my partner and I who had done nothing wrong but win a match and try our hardest. In the process of this, I received a,
“Well you are a professional and are supposed to know the rules,”
as well as a,
“We had to put this rule in place because girls would fake injuries and just take up and leave after the first round if they were out of singles to go and play in the next tournament.”
The best I could negotiate in the end a week later was,
“Since your partner was legitimately injured we can give you the points for your win—but sorry not your prize money.”
I lost about $300 that tournament, which was enough for my flight out to the next tournament.
OK, let’s give the ITF the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are not aware of the factor that injuries play in professional athletics. Let’s say they have never heard of Guga Kuerten, 3 or 4 time French Open Champion who cannot play anymore due to hip problems. And they have also never heard of Andre Agassi’s debilitating back injuries. Moving on, now let’s look at some evidence:
- The ITF gives us medical withdrawal forms and provides trainers at tournaments and tournament doctors (and when I say ‘they’ it’s not the ITF that provides these things, it’s the tournaments themselves or the local hosting federation like the USTA who are REQUIRED by the ITF as part of the tournament sanctioning to provide these services for the players.)
-The ITF fines us for withdrawing late from a tournament due to injury if we’ve withdrawn late two previous times in the last calendar year (they tell us that our fine monies go to Nigeria to pay for trainers at tournaments there, but I don’t believe it and they’ve never made an attempt to prove it - it is still a big mystery to me where all of our fines go, although they are more than happy to take it out of our prize money.)
-Both the ITF Circuit and the WTA Tour honor a rule called the “Special Ranking” rule, where a player who has a catastrophic injury that immediately takes her out of competition (blows out a knee, breaks a bone, or even gets pregnant) is allowed to enter into 10 tournaments and either one or two Grand Slams when she has recuperated using the ranking that she had at the time she became unable to compete.
There is more evidence that I could dig up but I think those three pieces are sufficient to suggest that the ITF is both aware of and knowledgeable that injury holds both an intrinsic and unfortunate role in the world of professional athletics.
And yet this crazy, arbitrary rule is in their little white rulebook that gives them the power to take points and prize money away from a player who suffers an injury that prevents them from playing.
Their best defense for the rule is their reason for creating it, that too many players were faking injuries in the second round to go and compete in singles and get more prize money the next week. So OK, I will assume that yes, some girls did this. But then I will also turn around and say that the ITF should have enough perspective on the situation to allow for real and actual injury which is bound to happen no matter how many girls are faking. Even if it’s not in their original rule they should have waived the original rule once they saw it’s arbitrary and unfair nature and given my partner and I our points AND prize money. And instead of grouping all players as some breed of self-absorbed and money-hoarding diva whose selfishness needs to be held in check, maybe the ITF should look at their prize money and point allocation diagrams to try to figure out why players would want to withdraw and go to the next tournament. Huh-what a concept!!!
My partner was out for 6 months after that tournament. And as far as the remark about being professionals and knowing the rules, as ‘professionals’ we are also knowledgeable on the rule against ‘tanking’ aka not trying. Let’s say my partner and I had gone out onto the court without her being able to run or move. We would have gotten fined for that too.
The sad reality of the matter is that, as players, we have no voice until you reach the WTA level. And even then your voice is minimal and it’s a lot of work to organize any kind of protest, also in the end you might not necessarily be the one who receives the benefit from your labors. Players on the ITF Circuit really have nowhere to turn, and the ITF can always turn around and say, “You are professionals, you are supposed to know the rules.” They can keep saying that until the cows come home, it doesn’t hide their dry and distasteful lack of interest in the well-being of the players who are competing on their Circuit. That’s a strong statement, but before I will take it back they need to show me a way to influence their rule book, as a player, and they should show a legitimate interest in removing or correcting arbitrary and nonsensical rules from their rulebook.
At the WTA level there are player representatives who sometimes speak up if there are issues that a whole group of players have trouble with. Recently a player named Anastasia Rodionova was the representative who fought for tournaments to pay hotel stipends, or rooms, for qualifying players at WTA tournaments. She was successful more or less, and lots of the tournaments now do this. Not all of them, and not necessarily the tournaments that Anastasia will play in, but some of them. One point for the players! 100 more points to go. . .
Women’s professional tennis is a very top-heavy sport in terms of prize money and ranking points. The system is basically set up so that the lower players who get the least income playing and have the hardest time grueling it out on the road have to pay the most. The top players are receiving incredible amounts of money to add their names to tournaments and they pay the least in travel expenses. One could say that the lower ranked players subsidize the top players because sometimes they pay for the services (a hotel, for example) that the top players get for free (top players get free rooms, and suites). Hmmm . . . you will get a sense when I break it down of what the top players earn versus the lower players—based on how small the difference is in the level of those players and how hard the rules make it to break through to a profitable level, the giant difference in earnings is incredible.
The WTA Tour does not have the same lamentable rule regarding second round doubles withdrawals-it really does seem to be the promised land of professional women’s tennis doesn’t it? You’ll think so even more when I explain the prize money and point break downs between ITF tournaments and WTA Tour tournaments. I would argue however, that the WTA Tour is only a promised land in comparison to playing the ITF tournaments. The WTA Tour is no walk through the park for players, there are so many problems and issues; the economy is totally top-heavy, the travel is brutal and tournaments each week can go from India to Paris to China-literally- the health insurance is super expensive, they charge member fees, the list goes on and on. The ITF Circuit is such a grind though, it makes the WTA Tour look like paradise!
Speaking of the grind of the ITF Circuit. . .I have been on it and that’s why it took me two weeks to write another blog entry. The good news is that Elizabeth Lumpkin and I won the doubles title at a $10,000 tournament in Amelia Island, FL. That is my eighth total ITF Doubles title, and my first since April of 2009 when I won a $25,000 event in Osprey, FL partnering with Lindsey Lee-Waters. The bad news (for me) is that my next blog entry will require a little bit more research (which I have already done thank goodness) and technical writing, as I will try to break down the points, prize money, and travel expenses of playing on the Tour and the Circuit. Once that is done, you will understand what I mean when I say the sport and the economy of pro women’s tennis is “top-heavy.” J
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