Professional tennis may seem a lucrative industry to be in but find yourself outside of the world's top 100 players, away from all the brand deals and winning major tournaments with the addition of online abuse... then the reality is much more daunting.

Alex Knaff, a Luxembourgish professional tennis player, ranked 504th in the world, highlights some of the mental, physical and financial struggles outside of the elite.

Abuse in the age of social media and online betting

One of the darker sides of sport that is not seen and probably not spoken about enough, is the abuse that athletes receive over social media. In this day and age, anybody can contact a sports personality over platforms such as Instagram or X. People really don't hold back either.

"They have threatened to chop my legs off so that I can never walk again, or have wished cancer on me and my family" says Knaff. And these types of comments occur regularly: "After every loss for sure and even sometimes after wins" recounts Knaff of past experiences.

According to the Florida State graduate, the main reason for this abuse is online betting. Tennis has carved out its own betting niche, the excitement of two individuals battling it out both physically and mentally, attracts large amounts of sums being placed.

Lower ranked athletes will be more attractive to bet on as the odds placed on them will be less known to the bookies, potentially rendering higher profits to punters.

Luckily Knaff says that the comments do not affect him anymore and sometimes "it gets so ridiculous that it becomes funny" but "at the beginning it was all pretty strange, after you lose you are already in a bad place mentally and then you get that on top so then it does affect you, now I try not to look at it."

Financial struggles

It can be expected that as a professional athlete, you will be putting your body through some levels of discomfort on a daily basis in order to achieve a higher performance level. The 193cm juggernaut trains 6 times a week which ends up taking over a large part of his life.

As tennis is one of the world’s most popular sports you would have thought that the financial rewards would be enticing enough to be making such sacrifices. However, outside of your Federers and Nadals it can be a lot more challenging.

"I usually try to compare it to a football or an NBA player. So right now, I'm 504th in the world. If I was a basketball player, I'd be in the NBA and there'd be a minimum contract. So there's some guaranteed money. In tennis, you can get injured, and you will make zero money from here on until you play again and until you win again. Whereas in other sports, you have somewhat of a guarantee and tennis is a big sport."

When you take into account that in order to make money you have to partake in tournaments, which means you have to get to the various destinations at your own cost.

Knaff says he plays between 25 and 30 tournaments if he is fit all year round, many of which will be in different parts of the world, (he just reached the semi-finals in a tournament in Tunisia) and transport is not free.

Fortunately for Knaff, he represents Luxembourg and the Luxembourgish Army has a program for elite athletes that provides financial support hence his struggle may not be equivalent to someone from a lesser developed country.

However, this does not justify the abuse he regularly receives and the governing body's of the sport should make more of an effort to address both the financial and abuse challenges.