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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Scholtz and Vorster in a Constant Rally
8/26/2016 | Men's Tennis
By Kim Ling,
Associate Director, Media and PR
On a beautiful sunny day, a couple Sundays ago near Santa Cruz, California, Ole Miss men's tennis alums Nik Scholtz and Tucker Vorster defeated reigning NCAA Champion Mackenzie McDonald (UCLA) and former Cal-Berkeley star Ben McLachlan to win the $100k Aptos Challenger.
There were a few fans in attendance, but barely a fraction of the crowd that will descend on Flushing Meadows next week for the U.S. Open.
Tennis is without question one of the most individual of all professional sports and one of the most difficult to make a living at.
Off the court, tennis is just as individualistic. Players are responsible for making their own travel arrangements, which include flights, accommodations, booking courts for practice, etc., that is unless your name is Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray â€" who often travel on private planes, have personal assistants and traveling coaches.
After helping the Rebels win SEC Championships and earning All-SEC honors during his career, Vorster remained part of the program as a student assistant in 2012, while completing his degree. Vorster then hit the circuit traveling to countries all across the world, mostly playing in futures and then a few challengers. He reached a career-high 278 in singles and is presently ranked 261 in doubles in the ATP World Rankings.
Scholtz wrapped up his stellar career as the first four-time All-American in program history in 2015 and then immediately hit the circuit himself. He is currently ranked 328 in singles and 307 in doubles.
As their rankings rose to about the same earlier this year, the duo â€" who have been friends for a long time and doubles partners for now eight professional titles â€" decided to start traveling together on the challenger circuit, which is a level below ATP events.
"We've always enjoyed playing together, but now that I am out of college and our rankings are similar, we can actually travel together," Scholtz said. "Doubles requires good chemistry. Because we know each other so well, we know what to say to each other in certain situations on the court."
"Like Nik said, we love playing doubles together," Vorster said. "With our current rankings, we can get into most of the challengers, so we should be able to play together for a while."
With the average age of the top 100 players at 28, Scholtz and Vorster say unless you're a once in a lifetime player, college is the best option.
They benefitted from top-notch coaching and practicing daily with other high-level players on the team, while all their travel arrangements, apparel and equipment were paid for by the university.
"To me it's a no-brainer," Vorster said. "The game has changed; age is not that much of a factor anymore. By the time you're done with college, you would have grown as a person and a player and you get a lot stronger mentally and physically. Whereas if you're 18 and you start losing a lot of matches, you can burn out. It's a great experience and something that no one can ever take away from you. It was the best four years of our lives on and off the court."
Scholtz added, "You're not losing anything and you're getting a degree. You're gaining exposure in all aspects of life. At the end of the day you'll never regret it."
With players playing a lot longer now and peaking later in their careers, it's possible for Vorster (27) and Scholtz (25) to continue pursuing their dream and get on a path to a financially sustainable career.
"It's a business now," Scholtz said. "It was fun playing in college, but there is obviously an economical side to it. If you do well and you're making a living and moving up [in the rankings] then we'll keep playing. Our situation is not just physical, it's financial as well. At the end of the day, we are definitely looking for some financial backing, whether it's from our federation or someone private. It's impossible to make it on your own."
In Aptos, Scholtz and Vorster were appearing in their second consecutive challenger final. Their take home for winning the title, a little north of $3,000 a piece. The singles winner received $14,400.
For comparison, fellow Rebel alum Jonathan Randolph is ranked 363 in the Official World Golf Ranking and has earned $179,848 this year on the Web.com Tour. He finished fifth in his most recent Web.com Tour event, and grabbed $22,000 in prize money.
"A lot of people don't realize how much it's costing us a year to play tennis," Scholtz said. "It's costing us $100,000 a year each and that's just expenses. You hardly even make that back with where we are right now. Maybe if you started out in the challengers, you might break even."
Scholtz and Vorster plan to play in three upcoming challengers in Asia. If all goes well, they'll be back in Oxford and the U.S. later in the fall for the swing of challengers in Knoxville, Tennessee, Charlottesville, Virginia and Champaign, Illinois.
"You can move up faster in challengers, but if you lose first or second round two months in a row suddenly your ranking will be back in the 600s," Scholtz said. "It's very risky. We've reached our first goal to be in challengers, the next goal is to stay there for a while."
Further down the road, the pair would like to get into qualifying for the grand slam tournaments.
"That's within striking distance if we do well, 250 to 260 and you're in qualifying," Vorster said. "It's within reach, but right now we are just trying to stay in challengers and keep building."
Players Mentioned
