Carlos Alcaraz has cemented his status as a dominant force in men’s tennis, powering into the championship match at the 2025 Nitto ATP Finals in Turin with a commanding performance. The Spaniard, who recently secured the ATP Year-End No. 1 trophy, looked every bit the top seed as he dispatched a resurgent Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 6-4 in the semi-finals, setting up a seismic final against his great rival, the Italian Jannik Sinner. This final is a fitting climax to a season defined by the two players, who have split the four Grand Slam titles between them and created a significant gap at the top of the sport.

For Alcaraz, it is his first final at the prestigious season-ending event and a chance to cap his incredible year with a personal-best ninth title. While the spotlight rightly shines on competitors like Alcaraz and Sinner, who appear to thrive on the sport’s biggest stages, a starkly different reality exists for some of their peers on the professional tour. The intense pressure and solitude of a tennis player’s life can breed a deep-seated discontent, a theme that has echoed through the careers of many top players throughout the sport’s history.

This sentiment finds a current and vocal proponent in ATP star Alexander Bublik, whose reported experience highlights a jarring contrast within the sport. According to a report from Express, Bublik was paid a substantial fee of £118,000 (~$155,175) for a two-hour training session with Carlos Alcaraz ahead of the final in Turin.

However, this lucrative opportunity was accompanied by a shocking admission from the Kazakh player, who stated, “I was paid £118k for training with Carlos Alcaraz for two hours, but I hate tennis. I hate every day I have to play. To be honest, I don’t see any positive aspect to being a tennis player. I only play for money. If there were no money at stake, I would stop playing. I haven’t earned enough, otherwise I would have retired already, and I think I will probably die playing tennis.”

This profound disillusionment, while extreme, points to a broader undercurrent of psychological difficulty in professional tennis. The sport is often described as one of the most solitary and mentally taxing, where players are alone on the court with no one to share the blame or the pressure. Players like Nick Kyrgios have voiced this sentiment before, stating, “I don’t think people understand how lonely you can feel in the tennis.”

The grueling, 11-month season involves constant travel across time zones, discombobulated sleep schedules, and long hours spent in lonely hotel rooms, which can turn a childhood passion into an energy-sucking job. “I think with anything you’re passionate about, it’s always a love/hate relationship, because you want that thing so bad all the time, you want to be perfect,” said Bianca Andreescu, who won the 2019 US Open but also had to battle through inconsistency due to the tiring nature of the sport.

The financial dynamics of the tour can exacerbate this feeling, as the vast majority of prize money is concentrated among the very top players, creating a scenario where many professionals lower in the rankings struggle to break even, making the sport a financial gamble rather than a fulfilling career for years on end. However, how much the two rivals can actually earn following the tournament in Turin?

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are set to win big

The prize money pool for the 2025 Nitto ATP Finals is set at a record-breaking $15.5 million. The prize system for the singles competition is all about performance, giving players various chances to earn as the event unfolds. Every qualified participant is set to receive a participation fee of $331,000. Plus, players get a nice reward for every round-robin match they win, with each victory bringing in $396,500.

Making it to the knockout stages means even bigger payouts: if a player wins in the semi-finals, that’s $1,183,500, and taking home the final victory adds another $2,367,000 to what they earn. So, if a player manages to win the tournament without losing any matches—becoming the undefeated champion—they’ll walk away with a whopping $5,071,000, which is the biggest single prize ever in the history of the event.

Both Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are on this path together. So, the Spaniard and the Italian have both gone through this tournament without losing a single match, and now they’re facing off in the final. If either of the two wins, they’ll take home an impressive $5,071,000, and the runner-up will still walk away with $2,910,500.