110. AROUND THE WORLD IN <80 DAYS

Jules Verne eat your heart out! His character, Phileas Fogg, travelled around the world in 80 days. That’s nothing for a tennis pro, or parent of! In terms of travel, during the last year alone my player and I visited 16 different countries, and some of them (for example, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal) we visited on multiple occasions. We circumnavigated the world, travelling from the UK to China, to the USA and back to the UK again in the space of only 35 days, and at the time of writing this blog, we are midway round again, having travelled to Canada and New Zealand, and are now in Australia, heading home again in the next couple of weeks via various countries in Europe, or maybe even the Far East! Players who were here literally only a few days ago, are already on court competing again in tournaments in the USA, India and parts of Europe, with little or no time to adjust to new time zones and climatic conditions.

This sport (pro tennis) really is a crazy one. How many other jobs have a person travelling around the world constantly in search of tennis matches, prize money (not much) and ranking points? And then even if you manage to reach the higher levels (top 100), you are still not guaranteed to secure a place in the top level events and the Grand Slams? It’s mad, but some might say, I am the mad one as I have a choice – I could stay at home and watch/experience the tour from afar, but I choose to go along too!

Is it worth it? Sure, if the player is rising up the rankings and more importantly, is enjoying what she does. I’m not convinced however that all the players enjoy it as much as they could/should. Sometimes the stress of the travel and the constant perceived pressure to perform is too much. The rewards at the mid/lower levels are simply not enough but if someone loves a sport and has that passion to perform then they somehow manage to cope with the brutality of it all. Is it worth it for me, as a parent? One hundred percent. As I have said in previous blogs, life is for living and to have the chance to travel the world at my age, with my daughter, following a sport I love, is without a doubt worth every penny and every ounce of stress.

When people hear about all my travels one of the first things they suggest is that I must have an amazing Air Miles (or equivalent) account. However, this is not always the case as when booking flights, the majority of players cannot afford to be loyal to one particular airline. Certainly in the case of my player and myself, we cannot afford the luxury of staying loyal to one or two airlines; we have to go with the most cost efficient flights and this often means there are no loyalty points on offer. This is especially the case when travelling around Europe, where the competition between carriers is particularly high. For sure there are loyalty schemes around but many have to be ‘bought’ and even then, they do not offer rewards for loyalty; instead they offer ‘speedy boarding’, free flight changes, seat upgrades etc but rarely, reduced price flights.

For long haul travel it is a little easier to accumulate loyalty points but often these can only be redeemed on certain flights, at specific times of the year, but tennis players rarely have the luxury of being able to plan their travel way ahead of time. Everything is last minute. We didn’t know we were going to be Down Under at this time until two days before we flew and when booking that late, the flights are super expensive, especially when you can only book a one way ticket as you don’t know the date of your return!

Flights and accommodation are by far the biggest cost areas for tennis pros, outside of coaching fees. In one year alone, a mid level player can easily spend c.£20-25k (per person) on just these items, and that is travelling Economy and staying in budget level hotels. Multiply this by however many players and their support staff there are on the tour and the airline and hotel industries are making a packet out of tennis! The top level players spend far more than this, often travelling in Business or First Class, or even via private jet, and staying in more luxurious accommodation, but to be honest they can afford it as the money they earn from tournament wins and product endorsements is way beyond that of the more average tour player.

I struggle to imagine how the tour was in years gone by when air travel was not so ‘easy’; it must have been incredibly difficult for players looking to compete beyond their own ‘back yard’. But times change and the world evolves and who knows, maybe at some stage in the future, air travel will be even faster and (hopefully) a little more affordable!

#realitytennis

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