'All about survival': Challenger Tour takes its toll

Sleeping on floors and not having money to eat are some of the hurdles facing players below elite level

- Ervin Ang

Less than a year after exiting the 2022 Wimbledon quarter-final on the All England Club's pristine No 1 Court, Cristian Garin found himself 10,000 miles away on a hard court on the Pacific island of Nouméa, New Caledonia.

The Chilean, who had a career-high ranking of world No 17, had signed up for an ATP Challenger event, tennis's second-tier tour, mostly attracting players outside the top 100, after a wrist injury forced him to miss two ATP Masters 1000 events. By January 2023, Garin sat at a precarious No 82.

An unforgiving ranking system, determined by tournament performances over the past 52 weeks, waits for no one. Even players like Garin, once among the world's best, can find themselves back in purgatory after a bad spell.

"In the beginning, it was difficult to find motivation," says the 29-year-old after a long pause.

"The cities, conditions are not the best, different from when you play the best tournaments. The Challengers are tough. Sometimes I get very upset because you go a long way to win 30 matches and you're still outside the top 100. It's way too much."

The life of a player can be far from fancy. Casual fans may look toward Carlos Alcaraz's lucrative sponsorship deals with envy, but those on the fringes of the top 100 and beyond live a starkly contrasting reality. The less glamorous side of the sport involves endless travelling, cost-cutting to make ends meet and battling bouts of loneliness.