I would say if you’re getting into 1000*/Masters tournaments without having to qualify, you’re not paying for gear. Under Masters, they’re getting varying discounts, might get a few things free. (1000 tournaments mean you get 1000 points for winning.)

I never thought about this and now I want to read 15 different articles on the ways professional tennis players procure their equipment. I want the shipping and logistics of all of this.

On his podcast, Andy Roddick has gone into the money side of being a tennis professional. He may have talked about equipment sponsorships on other episodes as well.

Lol I'm actually currently going through back episodes of this right now

That kind of figures! I've been loving your comments on this Medvedev incident. Would love to see that cut-away to his wife but no luck so far.

Gah sorry that's from a different point in the match I think and it's labeled wrong so I deleted

Oh, well, never mind. Thanks!

Yeah, high-level professional players in just about any individual sport are getting their equipment through sponsorships. The Williams sisters probably haven't actually bought a tennis racket since the mid-90s.

I mean, I would give them whatever they wanted from me. But yea I had never thought about this for tennis (or golf). I'm going to explore some articles because I want to learn more about the structures of this system (how selection happens, the logistics of it all).

Let me know what you find! I've never looked into it.

Will do. I've generally only followed team sports outside the Olympics so this just never came up for me before and now I'm curious.

Not the system-level exploitation I'm looking for but yowza bsky.app/profile/bake...

I endorse this

I meant exploration but lol exploitation works as well I guess

That you’ll need to dig for yourself or find someone far, far more knowledgeable about this than I. Which means I’ll probably spend the next two hours looking myself instead of sleeping because now I’m interested…

Hahha oh that's what I meant, I'll look around. If I find something, I'll share with you.

Thank you!

Truly wild bsky.app/profile/bake...