The hunt for points in the Tennis-Season 2025 is over, the last Austrian who was still at Challenger level was the Tyrolean Sandro Kopp. The 26-year-old made it to the semi-finals in Athens last week.
And yet: the jump into the top 300 is once again just out of the question. “It’s extremely difficult to get up at this level. It’s even more difficult at this level Future level“, says Kopp. This is the level below, the last level after the Grand Slams, the ATP Tour and the Challengerswhere points can be scored. “I reached the finals of five future tournaments this year and won three,” calculates Kopp.
The gap between the top players and the rest is widening. As far as the prize money is concerned (the tour is hardly financeable without sponsors), but also the points. For a title in Future tournaments you get 25 or 15 points, in Challengers you get a little more. Only: With the big challengers, you can hardly get into the main competition if you are far from the top 250 in the ranking.
This is also why Kopps has trainers Hakan Dahlboone of the best coaches in the country and already Horst Skoff supervisor, an idea. “At the end of the year you could set up a Masters for the best Challenger players, but also the best Future players.” The best players at the small level should also be there higher prize money, but above all with a lot of points be rewarded. In most cases, the effort required by these players is just as high as that of the stars.