Naomi Cavaday

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

RE: Naomi Cavaday

insomniacfolder · Challenger level

Really interesting players perspective from Naomi today in her blog post about the ITF money & structure changes to the calendar: MY TWO PENCE ON PRIZE MONEY

indiana · Tennis legend

Fine gesture as it is, Naomi, and if everyone in tennis added their twopences it might help a bit, but I am not sure how much accumulated twopences would help

I do though really enjoy your interesting and well written blogs.

Babfive · Satellite level

I always find what Naomi has to say on her blog interesting. The issue of pay at itf tournaments is a thorny one as so many interests come into play. The fact that players still fill a 10k draw (mostly) is a disincentive to make many changes but the ones she mentions seem sensible. Of course, when the 10k total hasn't changed for about 30 years despite inflation, you can see where the problem is arising. I'm not sure I really know the solution, but I do think if it is not tackled within the next few years then the tennis tour will become the province of the rich or sponsored only. I'd hate to see access restricted in that way.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Perhaps the big WTA events should contribute more to the grass roots to help produce the WTA players of the future. Would the Sharapovas of this world give up if their prize money was $990,000 instead of $1M?

wimdledont · Challenger level

The irony is that Sharapova could not afford not to play, if the prize money was nothing.

Her reported earnings for last year were US$23M - with about US$5 of that in prize money, the rest in endorsements/sponsorships.

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

Absolutely agree Babfive about the direction of it becoming the sport of the rich, interrupted by the occassional heavily sponsored wonderkid. I made a post just yesterday addressing this topic in our General Chat section.

And like Naomi comments further down in response to Wimdledont, the Grandslams are there to be looked at as they hold a vast percenatage of the money.

naomicavaday.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/my-two-pence-on-prize-money/

-- Edited by skibbarriz on Monday 11th of May 2015 08:09:09 PM

AliBlahBlah · All-time great

Naomi's blog has spawned it's own podcast with the lady herself! and special guest, the tournament director of all of the Sharm el Sheikh events. (duration 21:16)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Wow, Naomi is good !

wimdledont · Challenger level

Via twitter, Naomi is asking if anybody knows how to make the above, excellent podcast, downloadable?

Oakland2002 · All-time great

superb a high quality interview, explained the rationale behind Sharm el Sheikh and the tournament director is also very impressive. Naomi I think comes across really well, dare I say it she is a better orator than blogger, and the blogs not at all bad.

Really looking forward to the first Erith open with Naomi as tournament director and the A2 holiday Inn Bexleyheath as the official hotel. That said getting accomodation and food at less than £50 a night in the UK would be a real challenge and just shows what value Sharm offers.

christ · Futures level

Submitting posts doesn't seem to work at the moment for me, but at the risk of posting the same thing for the fourth time (if my posts ever show up), the link may be:

https://naomicavaday.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/episode-1_-prize-money.m4a

wolf · Tennis legend

Sorry christ, sometimes posts with a link on get marked as spam and you need to wait for a moderator to approve.

christ · Futures level

wolf wrote:
Sorry christ, sometimes posts with a link on get marked as spam and you need to wait for a moderator to approve.

No worries: moderators - if you see umpteen posts by me with a link in, please don't approve them!

Peter too · Tennis legend

I have just been collecting statistics on tournaments listed on the ITF site over a 49 week period.

They list 515 tournaments with a total prize money of $9,730K made up of 321 $10K, 28 $15K, 109 $25K, 43 $50K, 7 $75K, 7 $100K
The number of tournaments in a week varied between 1 and 18 with the prize money for the week varying from $10K to $530K
The peak week was the week starting 4th May with 9 $10K, 1 $15K, 3 $50K, 1 $75K, 2 $100K

I wonder why the ITF allow the tournaments to cluster as much as they do. With only 57 tournaments above $25K in a year it would make sense to spread them out to try and hold one in most weeks instead of having 17 weeks with no high level ITF events and other weeks with up to 6.
The number of $25K events varies between none and 7 in a week with a mean of just over 2.
The number of $10K events varies between 1 and 11 with a mean of 6.5.