Marin Cilic on what could lead to tennis growing as sport

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Former Croatian world No. 3 Marin Cilic has suggested that shifting certain incomes from the bigger tournaments to smaller ones would help tennis grow. The ATP Tour has been suspended since March 12 due to the coronavirus outbreak and it the suspension will run through at least mid-July.

High-ranked players should be fine during the Tour suspension but the lower-ranked players are facing major financial struggles. In the wake of everything that has happened over the last two months, many have been calling on the governing bodies to make some changes and make life easier for the lower-ranked players once tennis returns.

"What I always feel tennis would need to do is start to shift certain incomes from big tournaments, from Grand Slams or Masters 1000s, to smaller ones to help them grow and to grow tennis,” Cilic told Ravi Ubha of Tennis.com.

“So that maybe in 10 or 20 years we have, let’s say, a 250 tournament that offers $1 million total prize money and maybe Masters 1000s that grow more." As the coronavirus pandemic has affected the economy and businesses worldwide, there is a real chance that prize money at tournaments will be reduced once tennis returns.

When asked if he was fine with that, 2014 US Open champion Cilic insisted he would be OK with that as preserving the calendar and tournaments should be the main goal going forward. Cilic, now ranked at No. 37 in the world, has earned $27,864,286 over the course of his career.