{"id":770565,"date":"2026-06-30T19:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/770565\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T19:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:59:10","slug":"everything-that-is-paid-for-is-self-funded-the-realities-of-tennis-for-irish-players-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/770565\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everything that is paid for is self-funded\u2019: The realities of tennis for Irish players \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, Jannik Sinner<\/a>, Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> and Coco Gauff ended a two-day media boycott at Wimbledon<\/a>, part of a campaign called Project RedEye demanding Grand Slams allocate a greater share of tournament revenue to prize money. <\/p>\n

The All England Club, which increased its prize pot by 20 per cent this year to \u00a364.2 million (\u20ac74.6 million), committed to returning with specific proposals. Sabalenka insisted the protest was never about personal enrichment. The aim, she said, was to \u201cstand up and fight\u201d for lower-ranked players. Yet those players have a different view from the bottom.\u200b<\/p>\n

For Dylan Leeman, that threshold is a long way off. The 23-year-old from Belfast wasn\u2019t at Roehampton last week for the Wimbledon qualifiers. The world he inhabits \u2013 Challenger events, qualifying rounds for mid-tier European tournaments \u2013 is where the prize money debate should be.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite tough on the financial side of things,\u201d Leeman said ahead of last month\u2019s ATP Challenger tournament in Dublin<\/a>, where he received a wildcard entry. \u201cIn tennis there\u2019s not too much financial backing and you have to support yourself, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a year at the University of North Dakota, he returned to Ireland and began travelling the European Challenger circuit alone. To fund it, he coaches tennis on the side. Flights, accommodation, entry fees, equipment: all of it self-funded, supplemented by small local sponsorships.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that is paid for is self-funded, or I have small sponsorship opportunities from local people back home,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not easy. I have to coach tennis on the side to make a bit of money so that I\u2019m able to travel and play the tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n

For once, his family could afford to come and watch at Elm Park in Dublin. \u201cI have a lot of family coming up to watch me. And my coaches, which is rare because at this level it\u2019s hard to afford bringing your coaches and your family to tournaments.\u200b\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DylanDylan Leeman celebrates against Charles Broom at the ATP Men’s Tournament at Elm Park, Dublin, on June 14th, 2026. Photograph: Tom Maher\/\u00a9INPHO <\/p>\n

If Leeman represents the precarious optimism of a player still pushing towards that threshold, Ammar Elamin reflects something starker. The 24-year-old from Mullingar is ranked 1,438 in the world. His combined career prize money in singles and doubles stands at $13,802 (\u20ac12,083) according to official ATP records.\u200b<\/p>\n

Elamin has learned to budget tournaments down to the euro. He deliberately targets cheaper destinations over closer ones, reasoning that overall cost matters more than flight time.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say on average, flights per tournament, two flights, that\u2019s \u20ac200 to \u20ac400,\u201d he said.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cAccommodation, around \u20ac40 a night. Food, \u20ac20 to \u20ac30 a day.\u201d <\/p>\n

Then there is stringing. Restringing rackets is an expense that Elamin says is underappreciated by anyone outside the sport. \u201cIf you\u2019re stringing one a day, or two a day, it can be \u20ac15 to \u20ac30 a day, just for stringing.\u201d Add taxis, local travel, entry fees. \u201cPer week for a tournament, you\u2019re looking at \u20ac800 to \u20ac1,000.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n

He has never travelled with a coach. \u201cI always travel alone because I can\u2019t afford to [bring anyone],\u201d he said. The last time he had support on the road was as a junior, travelling with his father.\u200b<\/p>\n

Asked what his $13,802 in career prize money actually represents, set against years on tour, Elamin didn\u2019t hesitate. \u201cIt\u2019s basically nothing. That\u2019s definitely not how I fund my career. From the main tours, it\u2019s basically like nothing. I don\u2019t even consider that as an income, to be honest.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n

He funds his career instead through club matches in Germany, single-day fixtures that pay better than most tournaments, occasional appearances on the UTR tour, which carries no ranking points but better prize money than the main circuit, and national tournaments in Ireland, where his ranking puts him among the stronger players in the field.\u200b<\/p>\n

\"AmmarAmmar Elamin in action at Elm Park on June 15th, 2026. Photograph: Tom Maher\/\u00a9INPHO <\/p>\n

On the Wimbledon protest, Elamin\u2019s view is layered. He doesn\u2019t begrudge the players at the top.\u200b<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is fair for them to protest because of the percentage they\u2019re getting,\u201d he said, comparing tennis\u2019s 17.5 per cent revenue share to the NBA\u2019s 49 to 51 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do get paid a lot more than me, but as a percentage, they have the right to protest.\u201d <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s where the relevance stops. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see these headlines of these top players protesting, they\u2019re protesting kind of only for the very top guys. Whether their protests are successful or not, it\u2019s not going to change the story for me, unless I get to that stage. For now, for players on the lower tours, outside 200 or 300, that has no impact on us.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n

He has never entered a tournament expecting to turn a profit. \u201cPretty much every tournament, going into it, I have in my mind that I\u2019m going to be losing money,\u201d he said. \u201cI haven\u2019t won a pro title yet, so I save up money elsewhere with that thought in mind.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Seagulls, seeds and Searle: How Dublin\u2019s first ATP Challenger deliveredOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Asked where the line is, the ranking at which professional tennis becomes financially viable, Elamin is specific. \u201cIf you\u2019re inside 200, you can make a somewhat decent living. To be very wealthy, you need to be [in the] top 100.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 1,438 he has got a long way to go.\u200b<\/p>\n

Project RedEye\u2019s stated ambition, raising Grand Slam prize money allocation from roughly 15 per cent of revenue to 22 per cent by 2030, would meaningfully increase earnings for first-round losers at the sport\u2019s biggest events. But the likes of Leeman and Elamin are not playing Grand Slams. The gap between where they are and where the protest is happening, as in other sports, is structural, not just financial.\u200b<\/p>\n

For Leeman, the Dublin tournament afforded a glimpse of what the sport could look like with more investment at a national level. Playing in front of a home crowd, with his family in the stands and not having to worry about the larger associated costs such as flights.\u200b<\/p>\n

Elamin, for his part, has no illusions about getting rich from tennis any time soon. What he wants is simpler: a system that doesn\u2019t punish players for being good enough to turn professional, though not yet good enough to be seen in the Grand Slams.\u200b<\/p>\n

On Centre Court this week, the debate about tennis\u2019s financial future played out under harsh television lights. Further down the rankings, a player from Mullingar was working out the cost of his next flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff ended a two-day media boycott at Wimbledon, part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[4909,64,63,18937,754,85,747,749],"class_list":["post-770565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coco-gauff","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}