News & Features

by Colette Lewis, 27 September 2024

Special from Zoo Tennis

For the boys atop the International Tennis Federation junior rankings, the traditional pathway to professional success had required a lengthy stretch on the ITF men's World Tennis Tour, playing $15,000 and $25,000 events that seldom offer enough prize money to cover their expenses. The meager ATP points at that level meant playing week after week, hoping to accumulate enough points to compete at ATP Challengers, where prize money and hospitality mitigate the financial burden, and one title can produce more points than three or more WTT titles.

Two years ago, sensing the progress of top junior boys was stalling at that entry level, the ATP introduced a new pathway for highly-ranked junior boys, collaborating with the ITF on a program giving them more opportunities to compete immediately at the Challenger level.

"With the Junior Accelerator Program, if you finish top 20 year-end as a junior, you get opportunities at the Challenger level," said James Marsalek, ATP Senior Manager, Tour Development. "We always wanted to give players a level up, wherever they were competing. If you're ranked 700 in the world and you haven't played that much, you can get that opportunity to compete against better players at the Challenger circuit."

Now in its second year, the Junior Accelerator Program provides eight Challenger main draw wild cards to boys ranked 1-10 in the year-end ITF junior rankings and eight Challenger qualifying wild cards to boys ranked 11-20.

"Our Challenger Circuit has grown quite significantly," said Marsalek, noting that a similar program for top collegians was introduced at the start of 2023. "We've gone from 140, 150 events to 200 events, so we do have a good amount of opportunities for players. We've also increased prize money quite significantly, from $12 million to $21, 22 million, so again, it's opportunities, but also prize money on the line that these players would not be seeing if they were only participating in the events with their ranking.

"Maybe for three or six months they can compete at the Challenger level and then decide, this is for me, this isn't for me. But at least it isn't having to spend 18 months playing on the ITF World Tennis Tour before progressing their ranking to a level where there's hospitality and more prize money."

The ATP and ITF were also interested in strengthening the fields at junior circuit events, especially at the junior slam level.

"We value the grand slams, we believe that [junior] players should be competing at them," Marsalek said. "Sometimes you've seen the better players skip them the last couple of years. We wanted the top players to play those events, so we wanted to create incentives to do so. It's fine if you don't play the other [ITF junior events], we get that, but really, competing in junior slams is something you should be very proud of. I played a couple of junior slams when I was younger and it was memories for a lifetime. We really want to make sure that happens."

This year's US Open Junior Championships demonstrates the success of that push, with Australian Open champion Rei Sakamoto of Japan, Roland Garros champion Kaylan Bigun of the United States and Wimbledon champion Nicolai Budkov Kjaer of Norway all playing in New York, despite having already clinched their eight Accelerator spots in 2025 Challengers by virtue of their slam singles titles.

The push to finish in the top 10 was definitely on the minds of many of that trio's competition as they advanced through the boys draw in New York earlier this month.

"I think everyone wants to be at least top 10, to have the Challenger wild cards," said Theo Papamalamis of France, a 2024 Wimbledon semifinalist currently ranked No. 11. "I think everyone continues to play juniors because of this Accelerator Program, and if you are in the area of the top 10, I think that's the best idea."

Charlie Robertson of Great Britain, currently No. 10 after reaching the semifinals in New York, will be reevaluating his 2025 schedule after his recent surge in the rankings.

"I've been doing pretty well, getting close to maybe top 10, so we're discussing whether I'll keep playing juniors and try to fish for that," said the 17-year-old from Scotland. "These are amazing opportunities for everyone to get to play Challengers, get your actual ATP ranking up, which obviously means a lot more than juniors. Yes, I think a lot of people are pushing for top 10."

While Papamalamis and Robertson are from grand slam nations likely to bestow Challenger wild cards on their top juniors, a player like University of South Carolina freshman Atakan Karahan of Turkey doesn't have that kind of backing.

"My country has been really supportive of me," said IMG Academy graduate Karahan, currently ranked 25. "We actually have a lot of $15Ks, and they were able to give me wild cards to play those, but we don't have many bigger events, so this helps with those."

In addition to supplying players from smaller countries many more opportunities, the program also can provide a sense of accomplishment, which federation wild cards often lack.

"It's off your own back," Robertson said. "I'm not focused on the outcome. I don't try to think about it that much, but if you do it yourself, it's for sure better than it being handed to you. If you work hard and you get it, I'm sure it feels way better than just having it given to you."

For USTA Head of Men's Tennis Kent Kinnear, the junior and collegiate programs are a valuable addition to the player development landscape in the United States, although he does inject a note of caution.

"It's creating some amazing opportunities, but I think the big thing to be a little careful about is that the level needs to be the right level," Kinnear said. "If you get all these opportunities and you're not maybe ready for it, you've got to be a little careful, monitoring your win-loss percentage, how it fits into your schedule, all of that's really important. But the fact that they get those opportunities without needing a wild card, it does help accelerate their development and their experience out there; it just needs to be monitored and used wisely."

And if players who would be considered for USTA wild cards do not need them due to their Accelerator entries, that frees up wild cards for others.

"You look at this summer, in the [collegiate] Accelerator Program, Eliot Spizzirri was able to get some or Nishesh (Basavareddy) was able to get some," Kinnear said. "Obviously, with the collegiate years they had, they would be in strong consideration for wild cards also. So the fact that they got in by the Accelerator helped open up more spots for juniors or other collegiate players, so it's a help that way too."

With only four positions available for each Challenger, two in qualifying and two in main draw, occasionally a player may not get a spot in his preferred Challenger, although Marsalek said that has been a problem primarily for those in the college Accelerator Program in the United States.

But to address this, the ATP recently announced a $1,000 expense stipend per Challenger played to any Next Gen or Accelerator Program competitor.

"We're actually hoping that this expense program allows players to diversify," Marsalek said. "If you can't get into the one an hour or two away, you actually have $1,000 if you do want to fly to Canada or Europe. If you're thrifty, especially if you're getting free hospitality and some additional prize money on top of that, and you win a couple of matches, that justifies the journey. But at least the stipend makes it justifiable to have that expense. That was part of the reason we rolled it out, actually, was for these players, who perhaps can only play that one, because it's all they can afford and there's 10 players applying for it. So you have an opportunity to broaden that out and not have finances be a limiting factor."

Marsalek said the feedback on the two Accelerator Programs has been overwhelmingly positive, with 80 spots utilized so far this year in the junior program alone. So now the ATP's attention has turned to an expansion of spots offered at the ATP 250 level and above.

"If you start at the 50s and 75s and do well, you get access to the 100s and 125s," Marsalek said. "The way it's structured now, if you break inside the top 350, you get an additional eight opportunities at the 100s or 125s. If you break into the top 250, you get access to the ATP Tour opportunities as well. We would like some of the top, top players to actually have more than ATP 250 opportunities because they are only allowed to take them in certain weeks, when there are three events on the ATP Tour calendar."

The Next Gen Finals, which kicked off the ATP's push to identify and promote young stars in 2017, has been a notable success, with both Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner claiming titles at the year-end competition for 20-and-under players before they rose to the top of the ATP rankings.

Yet despite the emergence of a new generation of young stars, Marsalek sees additional areas where the ATP can improve its efforts to help the current Next Gen players.

"I think we have a long way to go on the marketing and commercial side to promote these guys better and to give them maybe some sponsor opportunities," Marsalek said. "We now feel very confident with the playing opportunities that we're providing, we're happy with the financial support we've just launched; the next stage for us is making sure we're providing the right benefits to these players, whether that's from a performance or injury prevention standpoint, as they learn a little bit more about the demands of the tour."

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About Colette Lewis

Colette Lewis has covered topflight U.S. and international junior events as a freelance journalist for over a decade. Her work has appeared in Tennis magazine, the Tennis Championships magazine and the US Open program. Lewis is active on Twitter, and she writes a weekly column right here at TennisRecruiting.net. She was named Junior Tennis Champion for 2016 by Tennis Industry Magazine.

Lewis, based out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has seen every National Championship final played since 1977, and her work on the tournament's ustaboys.com website led her to establish ZooTennis, where she comments on junior and college tennis daily.