The Other Side...

[Kieran]

An interesting article about a journeyman pro, Jamie Baker, who reached 185 in the world - but gave up the game aged 27. It's a poignant insight into top tennis players lives - but ones without the riches.

From the article:

Last year, the 185th best male golfer on the planet, Greg Chalmers, got about £387,000 in prize money – more than £100,000 more than Baker managed in his whole career before you even factor in his expenses.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

On top of that, golfers can get away with being overweight...No fair...:nono

 

[Denis]

Lol are we comparing golf players to tennis players here and being socialist about it?

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Yep, it is indeed a cruel game. Thanks for posting it.

To some extent it is the nature of things in sports and arts. For every successful
player who make it, or a singer or an actor who makes it, there are thousands who
try and fail or quit. But, if you make it, you make it big. It is a high risk and
high reward career choice.

You can become a sales clerk, office secretary etc where there is low risk
involved. However, at a pay of $30,000 per year in these kind of jobs and
if you work for 30 years, your overall earning is 900,000 which is less
than the prize money of a loser in a grand slam that is played over two weeks.

Tennis is surely more cruel than other games for two reasons.

a. Travel: it adds cost, makes your biological clock screwed, makes you
miss time from family

b. Individual: individual nature of sport makes it easy to disheartened.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Here is another story on the "other side". I found it AUstralian Open web site.

http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2014-01-16/201401121389573739195.html