Updated article [at the end]

First, a few words about my recovery from the second injury of the year.
It’s going well, I’m back on the court, starting with baby steps.  But right now I’m progressing nicely.
I feel improvements day by day, I work hard, both in the gym with a professional team of physiotherapists and on the court, with my coaches.

But I will tell you the whole recovery story in detail, after the first official tournament that I will play (well, the same superstition that I already talked about).
For now, just a video from yesterday’s practice, which I did with coach Traian Rădulescu:

Having now a little more time at my disposal, my eyes fell on a very interesting interview [it’s worth using google translate to read it in full] given by the vice-president of the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation, Yuri Polsky for the championat.com website and quoted by the blogger @OlegS.

One of the most interesting topics he addresses is that of the extremely unfavorable financial situation of the WTA.

Polski estimates that the women’s tennis organization is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Steve Simon, CEO of WTA, rushed to deny the claims of the president of the Kazakhstan Federation.

But let’s take them one by one:

Polski says the rescue will come from ATP, through the much talked – since the pandemic – merger (or at least very close cooperation) between the two associations.
Thus, ATP will sell the media rights in one package with WTA, an option for buying only men’s tennis media will be no longer possible.
Thus, ATP proposes to save WTA by increasing its visibility and inflating artificially its value, because the bankruptcy of the women’s tennis organization would be also harmful for the men’s component of this sport as well.  

Simon answered in a hurry to those allegations (in an interview for Sport Poland via @TheTennisLetter):

The WTA is in a healthy financial position, a merger with the ATP is not under consideration & we are excited about our strong future during which we will continue grow & expand women’s tennis. Earlier this year, the WTA announced an increase of $400 million in compensation to players over the next 10 years maintaining the WTA’s position as the leading women’s sports organization globally.

But, as we showed in the previous article of “Court Chronicles”, WTA had in 2021, both the balance between revenue vs. expenses [line 19], as well as that of assets vs. liabilities, negative [line 22]. While ATP is on the plus side, and a considerable one:

So, Steve Simon’s optimism seems misplaced, in the conditions where women players are pressing for equal prizes with men at all tournaments.

An indirect confirmation of the unification scenario of the two circuits comes from another source: starting next season, the categories of the women’s tournaments on the ITF circuit will be changed again.
Thus, the 6 categories will be: ITF W100, W75, W50, W35 and W15. As one can easily see, the first 3 categories are identical to the last 3 of the ATP Challenger circuit.
So I suspect that the next step will be to move them to the WTA, and by attaching them to the current WTA 125 category. So a WTA Challenger circuit (almost) identical to the men’s will be created, leaving the ITF with only the last two categories: W35 (upgraded from W25) and W15, also the same as in the men’s ITF (M).

Incidentally, this is an idea that I had in the past and presented it to you in this article, but I am not happy for that, but because in this scenario we would also have hospitality – accommodation and meals – for $50,000 tournaments upwards (not like now, starting from 80k). At least, this would be logical. I also talked in the same article about the big differences between the conditions on the ITF tour compared to those of similar categories ​​on the ATP Challenger tour.

Returning to Polsky’s interview, he discusses also about some other interesting topics:

•  the ATP tournament in Kazakhstan, which this year returned to the 250 category – only in 2022 it was ATP 500 – for calendar reasons, because it was scheduled at the same time as ATP 500 Beijing. The Chinese offered very large participation bonuses, and the Kazakhs did not overpay, being quite sure that next year they will return to the 500 category. Also, the tournament will be moved to Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan and with a richer tradition in terms of tennis. In addition, a WTA 250 or WTA 125 tournament will be organized there;
• he also states that the exodus of Russian players under the Kazakh flag will continue – the 3 players in the two top 100, Rybakina (4), Bublik (30) and Putintseva (70), are Russians – and on their footsteps is almost certainly Alexander Shevchenko (87 ATP, 22 years old).
  He defeated Stan Wawrinka on Tuesday, in the first round of the ATP 500 Basel, and Taylor Fritz yesterday, after saving two match points, for his most important career win:
  

Shevchenko, yesterday in Basel
Credit foto: @atp & @tennistv

• but the Kazakh Federation does not rely only on “transfers” and has set up a pyramid system for children, who are receiving important financial support right from the start: for those under 10, parents only have to buy them sneakers. The rest of the equipment is provided free of charge by the regional authorities. Starting at the age of 12, they are divided according to value criteria into 3 categories: gold, silver and bronze and can promote following special results: presence in the semifinals, or more, of important tournaments.

We can draw the conclusion, without fear of making a mistake, that where there is passion and competence, money will come for sure.

Update:

In the meantime, ITF has notified players about the changes, that we talked about above, starting in the first week of 2024:

Photo 1: the categories of the ITF tournaments and the round-by-round. Photo 2, in both circuits.

We notice at first sight that:

• the new categories that we presented above are confirmed – W100, W75, W50 and W35 – their names being given by the number of points awarded to the champion
• financial prizes remain the same as in the old categories: 100,000 USD / W100; 60,000 / W75; 40,000 / W50; 25,000 / W35; 15,000 / W15;
• our hunch that this is a transitional phase to a complete WTA Challenger circuit is indirectly confirmed, because the WTA will award 125 points for the champion at the W125 category, not 160, as before (so, an almost complete alignment with the ATP / ITF M, the exception being the ITF category M25). Moreover, in the last sentence of the ITF communiqué (photo 1), this aspect is explicitly specified;
• at all WTA 1000 tournaments, 1000 points will be awarded to the champion (this year there were 3 tournaments, formerly Premier 5, with only 900 pointsfor the Winner);
  
• starting with 2024, 18 tournaments (not just 16 as before) will be taken into account in the women’s ranking line, just like in ATP: 4 Grand Slams, 8 WTA 1000 plus 6 best other results from and 12 in doubles (so far, 11)

I went through these news for interested readers, but as far as I’m concerned the changes don’t make much difference. That’s right, more points are awarded in certain categories, but the financial prizes are remaining the same. As for the hospitality I was hoping for (see above), no mention.

So, I would complete the expression: “Tennis is played with points”, with “but also almost without money”.

That’s it, I’m moving on and not only me, as you will see in the next article of “Court Chronicles”.