Levels of Tennis Explained: ITF, Challengers, ATP Tour

As with any sport, professional tennis has levels to it. The most commonly known tier in men’s tennis is the ATP Tour, and its counterpart in women’s tennis, the WTA Tour. However, there are several levels below this.

From the ITF through to the Challenger Tour, we’re going to take a closer look at each of the levels in professional tennis and what they entail. Read on for a breakdown from the side of the players and from the side of the organization.

ITF Level

The ITF level is the so-called lowest level of tennis, though it doesn’t always mean that specifically. It simply means it’s the lowest level of tennis organizationally. Sometimes you can find tennis players who are above this level playing at this tier, whether it be because their ranking is not good enough right now or whether there is a lack of events.

On the women’s side, it’s common to see really solid players playing at this level. This is because the women’s side of the sport doesn’t have a dedicated tour similar to the Challenger Tour, so many women opt to play in stronger ITF events.

Now you might be wondering what “stronger” implies here? Well, it implies that there are levels to ITF tennis as well. There are, for example, ITF 15M events and then there are 25M events. Those differ in the quality of players playing, but not only that, prize money as well.

On the women’s side, there is even more variance, with W75 events as well, which would be similar to what a Challenger event on the men’s side is. The ITF level also means that organizationally it’s not the top of tennis.

These events are played in smaller clubs usually, on lower quality courts, and offer less prize money. Some of these parameters can be better or worse depending on the location, but overall this is the “lowest” in terms of prestige and organization when it comes to professional tennis.

Players that play these events can range anywhere from 1000 to 500 in ranking, though sometimes better ranked players do play as well. Location matters too, because ITF events in Denpasar, which is located in Bali, are much more popular than an ITF event in Brazzaville.

Another thing that is common with the ITF Tour is that events are usually staged in the same spot for a couple of weeks in a row. So if you have an event in Sharm El Sheikh, then you might have three or four in a row because of traveling costs.

It’s not uncommon that something like this happens at the higher levels as well, though it’s mostly regional. Events happening in the same city is almost unheard of unless there is a global pandemic going on.

More reading: Check out this blog post from Sebastiano about his debut on the ITF level or Jonas ITF Masters Tour Adventures back in 2022!

Challenger Level

Now this is arguably the most fascinating level of tennis because there is so much to talk about here. 

Realistically, it’s a considerable step up compared to the ITF Tour. Starting with organization, these events are staged in either universities which have really good facilities or tennis clubs that have really good infrastructure. Going from an ITF event to a Challenger event is night and day for most players. Everything is better organized, with the umpires being better quality, there are ball kids bringing you the balls, which isn’t the case in many ITF events.

The sponsorships of events are quite a bit better, allowing for better prize money, but also the amount of points you can win is significantly higher compared to the ITF Tour. While winning an ITF event might get you a couple of points, Challengers tend to offer dozens of points, which makes it easier for players to progress on the rankings.

The quality of tennis played at these events is also miles better compared to the ITF Tour. That’s mostly because most Challengers don’t only feature players that are typically Challenger players. Quite often you would get players that regularly play on the ATP Tour.

That tells us a couple of things. It tells us the difference between the Challenger level and ATP level is pretty close; otherwise, these players would never drop down to play. It wouldn’t be worth their time, but quite often they do.

The Challenger Tour essentially works as its own thing. It’s a stepping stone for the best players, as many not only have won but played on it. Players like Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and others have all played and won Challenger events before starting to play on the ATP Tour.

Even so, there are players that spend the entirety of their career playing on the Challenger Tour and are content with it because it does function like a mini version of the ATP Tour. There are sponsorships to be had, money to be made, and the world to be seen. The tour features fewer events than the ITF Tour but more than the ATP Tour.

Here’s another post for anyone interested in some more insight about visiting a Challenger tennis event.

ATP Tour

For most tennis fans, this will be a well-known topic. The ATP Tour is the top level of tennis. There isn’t a higher level of professional tennis, and the players that compete on this tour are the best that they can be.

Most of them have competed on the Challenger Tour as a stepping stone to becoming an ATP player, and after proving themselves, they are able to now play on the ATP Tour. Who gets to play here doesn’t really depend on the level alone.

There are players good enough for the ATP Tour that don’t play on the ATP Tour because their ranking is not good enough. You have to be ranked inside the top 70 to 80 players if you want to play regularly on the ATP Tour, so the competition is high.

It’s not unheard of that players who play a lot of Challengers amaze when they get to the ATP Tour because the Challenger Tour doesn’t really lag behind the ATP Tour much in any sense.

Just look at what happened recently at the Australian Open. Learner Tien spent much of 2024 playing and winning Challenger events, and then when he got to the ATP Tour, he bested Daniil Medvedev in a match, a top-10 ranked player.

For example, if the ITF level was ‘one’, then the Challenger Tour would be a ‘four’, and the ATP Tour a ‘five’. It’s really a big jump from ITF to Challenger, while the jump to ATP isn’t as significant anymore because the sport has developed to such a level that there are many solid tennis players.

Tiers Within Tiers

One thing that we briefly touched upon are the tiers within tiers. We explained how on the ITF Tour there are tiers to the events. That’s the same on the Challenger Tour and the ATP Tour. It’s not just a flat line where every event is the same.

So, for example, on the Challenger Tour, there are a couple of tiers when it comes to the event. There are Challenger 50, Challenger 75, Challenger 100 and Challenger 125 events.

What the number in those names means is simply the amount of points the winner gets for winning the event. This matters because in tennis, points are what rank you among your peers. You want that number to be as big as possible because the bigger it is, the more benefits you have.

The higher the tier of the Challenger, the more money you get as well. So compare a Challenger 50 event, which has a prize money of $60,000. The winner of that event gets $8,000. The winner of a 125 Challenger event gets $28,000, which is quite a bit more. The overall prize money of that Challenger is also $200,000, so everybody gets more money.

The same applies for the ATP Tour, where there are tiers as well. There are the ATP 250 events, which are considered the regular ones. Then there are the ATP 500 events, which give players more money and more points. Then there is the Masters 1000 tier, which gives out even more money and more points.

The name again simply implies how many points are on the line. For example, in a Masters 1000, the winner will take away 1000 points. If it’s an ATP 500, then it’s 500 points for the victor. 

Finally, there are also the Grand Slams, which are four events that are considered the most prestigious in the world of tennis. Some argue that they are a tier in themselves, which they kind of are, given how much bigger they are.

The prize money for a Grand Slam reaches well into the millions for the winner, with 2000 points on the line and 128 players in the main draw.

A comparative breakdown of the differences

To illustrate the difference in the tours in simple terms, let’s make some comparisons. Below is a comparative breakdown of a range of tennis events from this year’s calendar, across different levels.

	ITF event	Challenger 50	Challenger 125	ATP 250	ATP 500	ATP 1000	Grand Slam
Prize money total	$30,000	$60,000	$200,000	$680,140	$2,760,000	$11,000,000	$27,000,000
Prize money winner	$5,000	$8,350	$28,400	$103,525	$516,165	$1,000,000	$2,200,000
Points winner	15	50	125	250	500	1000	2000

This is just one example of what events from these tiers paid out in the past. These numbers change all the time. Sometimes events have bigger prize money, sometimes they have less, but generally the trend has been going upwards because tennis as a sport is getting more popular.

The numbers in the lower tiers remain lower, with the most paid ones getting bigger, but that’s just the nature of business. Anybody in any field that is closer to the top of that field is earning more money compared to those below him, who can struggle quite a bit.

What this table does really well is illustrate some of the nuance. There is a lot of variety on the Challenger Tour, so while a Challenger 50 will be closer to an ITF event in all respects, a Challenger 125 might be closer to an ATP event and might actually become an ATP event.

It’s not uncommon that ATP events get demoted while others get promoted. The bottom line is this: there are a couple of tours in tennis, but even within those tours there are mini-tours.

Some of the best players don’t even bother playing anything but the biggest events, so it’s relative. The closer to the top you are, everything is better. The hotel is better, the staff is better, the courts are better, more money is there to be had. It’s easier to earn those valuable points.

As you get lower, all of this becomes worse and worse, so in many ways the top and the bottom might just be different spots. It’s part of why somebody like Djokovic, who comes from humble beginnings, is advocating for the sport to pay more to the players, because once you get away from the biggest challenges, it gets really tough for a player.

Noted Challenger player Karue Sell posted a YouTube video not too long ago explaining his earnings on the Challenger Tour. Even though he mostly played the bigger ones and played well (56-20 record), he still didn’t break even, as the travel cost him more money than he earned.

So it’s a brutal sport; unless you truly make it, you’re going to struggle, and that’s why tennis is quite unique from other sports. Despite its global popularity, it really doesn’t pay all too well, unless you’re at the top. The number reserved at the top, though, is small, so only a finite amount of players get in.