Life outside tennis' top 100: shared motel rooms and sleeping on floors

Many of those below tennis's top tier are making a net loss as they travel the globe chasing ranking points. 

Even players like Cristian Garín, once ranked 17th in the world, can find themselves in tennis purgatory. Pic: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Less than a year after exiting the 2022 Wimbledon quarter-final on the All England Club’s pristine No 1 Court, Cristian Garín 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, Garín sat at a precarious No 82.