Travel Log| Notes on the tennis tour

In the introduction to Arthur Ashe: Portrait in Motion, in 1974 Arthur wrote “In this year, I played on five continents, made 129 airplane trips, slept in 71 different beds and traveled 165,000 miles.”

Starting in January all the way through November, the professional tennis tour sends players crisscrossing the globe many times over. Travel is the norm for professional tennis players and even though much about the tennis circuit has changed in the 35 years since he wrote that, travel remains a constant.

With more than 50 tournaments on the WTA Tour and 60 on the ATP tour that are located in such diverse locales as Dubai, Rotterdam, Basel, Acapulco, Istanbul and Beijing, there is certainly significant travel involved. In fact, Flavia Pennetta, in a recent interview for the WTA, joked that because of switching hotels so frequently, she sometimes forgets her room number.

Despite visiting so many amazing cities though, often times players barely get a chance to look around. Most players have noted that there is not that much time to sightsee, and that mostly they see the hotel, the courts and the airport. Ana Ivanovic said in a 2009 interview that even though, “most of what we see is the tennis club and the hotel—I try to stay a couple days extra and visit. For example, when I was in China, it was great to go to the Great Wall of China, Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City.”