Why Tennis Players Should Be Required To Get A College Education

The 1,878th (tied for last in the ATP Standings) singles player in the world, Tilen Zitnik, has made a combined total of $4,219 in singles and doubles play in his entire career.

The minimum wage in the lowest paying state, Minnesota, is $6.55 an hour.

If Zitnik was working a normal nine-to-five every day with a one-month vacation and a one-hour lunch break, he would receive $11,004 for the year.

Tennis is one of the few individual, as opposed to team, sports. That helps and hurts the professional player, but mostly it hurts him. Usually the top-100 players make a decent living, and that’s all.

So far this year, the 100^th ranked player in the world, Edouard Roger-Vasselin has made $144,097. In his entire career he has earned $949,027.

Vasselin is 27-years-old. He could have received a bachelor’s degree and an MD by now.

According to doctorseachtips.com, in 2008, there were over 661,400 doctors in the U.S.

The lowest average salary a general pediatrician makes is $97,750 a year. That’s almost what Vasellin made this year and pediatricians far outnumber tennis players.

The life span of a tennis player is short. Players tend to retire at age 30-35. If a male turned pro at age 18 (very generous) and then earned the same amount as Vasselins, i.e. $144,097 each year, he would end up making a grand total of $2,593,746 during his tennis career, assuming he retires at age 33. That may seem like a lot, but it is spread over an entire career. The costs associated with playing on tour are not minimal. Training, coaching and travel all eat away at earnings.

The critical question is what happens to a professional player after he retires. Does he have a future if his education ended with high school?

Most (if not all) professional tennis players start training for the pros at a very young age.

All they know how to do is pick up a racquet.

The schools they go to focus strictly on tennis, and little else is taught.

An injury can quickly put an end to a tennis career. Expectations often exceed reality. Choosing to pursue a tennis career can result in too many bad scenarios.

Requiring tennis players to complete college would protect them from having nothing to fall back on if tennis fails them. College tennis programs would benefit, and a college degree would give players an entry into other fields if they cannot pursue tennis because of injuries, age or not being up to snuff.

Colleges do more than educate. They also change lives, providing an environment for maturing, discovering interests and abilities and for having fun.

Even if a player is able to turn pro and be successful, a college degree will make it much easier to obtain a job when the tennis career ends. A bachelor’s degree helps out more than you’d expect. College graduates with bachelor’s degrees earn an average $31,900 more than high school graduates.

Are there always going to be tennis players who are can make loads of money and not need college? Yes, but not many. I would say around 25 people every five years can make it through life just playing tennis.

You have to remember the rankings don’t really change too much. The same players are always in the mix and those players stay around for about 5-10 years.

This is a warning for a young tennis athlete who may think he is the next Roger Federer. There’s a one in a billion (maybe even less) chance of that happening. Go to college first, and then think about how realistic a tennis career is for you.