"How many know Frances Tiafoe is in Kazakhstan?... Only one who can afford not to play is Jannik Sinner"- Taro Daniel slams ATP's "inefficient" season

31-year-old Japanese ATP player Taro Daniel has cited Jannik Sinner and Frances Tiafoe's examples to speak up about the situation he and his colleagues find themselves in, with regard to the season schedule. According to Daniel, the "spread out" scheduling of ATP events has led to several tournaments becoming increasingly unknown to audiences, which in turn has stifled their financial rewards.

Daniel, who has been ranked as high as World No. 58 in singles, holds the current ranking of World No. 89. While the US-born Japanese player has broken into the top 100, his failure to climb further up the rankings has meant that he has not had the luxury of skipping events that have limited appeal among audiences and low prize money.

He has played at 30 events this year, not including the 2024 Paris Olympics. Those events have been a mix of Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, ATP 500s and 250s, and a few ATP Challenger-level events as well.

Recently, Daniel took to X (formerly Twitter) and highlighted the example of Frances Tiafoe's participation at the 2024 Almaty Open (previously the Astana Open) this week. The two-time US Open semifinalist and former World No. 10 is the top seed at the Kazakhstan-based ATP 250 event.

However, according to Daniel, there is very little awareness and interest surrounding the tournament, despite Frances Tiafoe being a top-15 ranked player. Tiafoe ranks among the most popular present-day tennis players hailing from the US. The 26-year-old skyrocketed to fame following his famous fourth-round win over Rafael Nadal at the 2022 US Open.

In one part of a five-post thread on X, Daniel wrote,

"Schedule is so spread out over so many different places, fans don’t even know what’s going on. How many people know that Frances Tiafoe is in Kazakhstan this week? That there are 5-6 challengers going on every week?"

Daniel took part in the 2024 Almaty Open as well, but could not get past Daniel Evans in the first round, falling to a 2-6, 6(4)-7 loss to the Brit.

The 31-year-old went on to opine that only World No. 1 Jannik Sinner happens to be in a position where he can pick and choose tournaments due to his financial security.

"I don’t have solutions but there has to be more efficient ways to qualify to events where we actually make a living (GS and masters). It is your choice to play but when there are that many events, the only one who can afford not to play them is Sinner at the moment," Daniel added in the following post of the thread.

In another post, he added,

"We don’t even have to mention lower tier tournaments. It is a crazy concept that in a such high level environment like a 250 most people involved are not making money. These tournaments make up 60 percent of most players’ calendar having to travel to foreign countries most times"

A comparison between Jannik Sinner and Taro Daniel's respective tournament appearances and prize money earned this season paints a deeper statistical picture of the wide divide between the two players, despite both being in the ATP top 100.

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A look at Jannik Sinner and Taro Daniel in 2024: matches and prize money

Jannik Sinner posing with the 2024 US Open men's singles trophy (Source: Getty)

Jannik Sinner has so far featured in 14 tournaments this year; a stark contrast to Daniel's 30 tournament appearances. However, the events featuring Sinner have been a mix of only the Majors, ATP Masters 1000s, and ATP 500s. The Italian's latest outing came at the 2024 Rolex Shanghai Masters, where he clinched the title after coming out on top against Novak Djokovic in the final.

The Italian though, has featured in a lot more matches than Daniel. While the World No. 1 has played 71 singles matches across the 14 tournaments owing to his consistent deep runs, Daniel has only been able to play 34 so far. Jannik Sinner has a 65-6 win-loss record, while Daniel's record stands at 10-24.

From the standpoint of prize money, Jannik Sinner has won seven of the 14 tournaments he has featured in this season and earned over $12 million. Meanwhile, Daniel, with no titles to his name, has so far earned a little over $700,000, a mere fraction of the World No. 1's earnings.