As you already know, I have been injured for three months. In the meantime, I looked for solutions on my own. I went, through recommendations, to doctors and physiotherapists, trying to find the best solution, asking left and right for opinions from other players who have been injured before.

The only help (a financial one) that I received – apart from that of relatives and friends – was that from the club where I am registered now, Sportsin Arad, one adapted to their possibilities.

Related to this situation, I would like to address in today’s article a topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately: tennis clubs in Romania and the help they give to their players.

Over time, I was registered at various clubs in Romania: Dinamo Bucharest, Steaua Bucharest, CSS 2 Bucharest. Each of these offered me a modest monthly sum – about half of the minimum wage – a so-called allowance, and in exchange for it I had to play the National Individual Championships and the National Team Championships. I was also offered a free training court, but during a specific time interval, and Dinamo also provided a medical facility, equipped with the bare necessities, where you could go to do your recovery.

But during the Covid period and several months after, I didn’t receive that monthly allowance anymore. Nevertheless, I continued to do my duty and I played the National Championships.
I asked the club’s management for clarification and I was told that the club’s money is invested in athletes who participate in international competitions. I accepted that explanation – without asking the question that had come to mind: “But what kind of competitions am I participating in?” – and I decided to change my club.

After all my experiences, I wonder why we don’t have a system which protects players when they go through difficult situations? From my point of view, a tennis player who plays for a Romanian club should have the minimum necessary in order to carry out his activity in all financial tranquility, that is:

A stable monthly income, medical insurance, specialist consultation in case of injuries, a sports facility with courts, fitness and recovery facilties.

And I immediately add: at least at a decent level.

This is where the lack of a well-designed system is visible. And this system does not exist due to lack of funds, lack of sponsors and lack of club members (in several countries, Germany, Italy, France, members are paying an annual fee to use the facilities and so the clubs are able to support their projects, including those who are targeting professional players).

Also, the clubs or the Federation could attract private sponsors, because the athletes, in their vast majority, do not have agents, so they would have to “beg” for sponsorships. They wouldn’t know who to turn to, nor would they have time to walk from door to door, between two practice sessions or two tournaments. Juniors could take advantage of all these conditions, as well as players who have achieved good results on the ITF Pro circuit, but who still need time and for that matter funding in order to continue their career.

Otherwise, the phenomenon that is increasingly common in our country, that of retirements from the professional activity of talented players, some of them with promising results, will continue with greater intensity.

You may not be familiar with all the names of the players or you may not always notice when a name disappears from the live score applications, but I assure you that many Romanians have given up, even recently, some retirements being surprising ones.
Some of them will try to come back later, but it will be even harder for them than it was at the beginning.

And these retirements are caused precisely by the lack of a constant income.
The player either panics, when he has a bad period or is injured and sees how his bank account – already quite thin – becomes very fast empty, or gives up to the pressure of his family or relatives, which are worried, rightly, about the same reason.

And that’s when he decides to retire from the circuit and get a “real job” (an expression I kept hearing and which I will come back to in a future article).

Solutions do exist and I state from the very beginning that I am aware of the need for money from many other areas.
But there wouldn’t be a need for huge amounts for each player, because the facilities I talked about above would be used by many of them.

For that, private sponsors should be attracted, presenting them with well-thought-out projects, drawn up by specialists, together with a professional marketing plan. Thus, they could be convinced that the money will be spent efficiently and part of those intended for other sports – let’s say, for football – could come to tennis. And only a very small part would be needed.

This situation is all the more unpleasant, as our country has had a “golden generation” of female tennis players and even a few valuable or very valuable men in the last 10 years.

The “Simona phenomenon”, one with an enormous reach among the Romanian public and not only was not taken advantage of in any way, e.g. to use her image in order promote this sport much more.

I wrote these lines because I wanted to draw your attention to that situation, not because I am resigned to the support I could receive now or in the future. Who knows, maybe in the years to come, things will change for the better.

I wish with all my heart that at least future generations will be helped and they will not go through what we and our families had to.