Ewen Lumsden finds himself facing the eternal struggle that many aspiring athletes have to deal with in the nascent stages of their career.
The rising tennis prospect returned home this summer after five years at university in the United States, intent on getting his professional career properly up and running.
The 23 year-old is keen to play in as many ITF [International Tennis Federation] Future tournaments as he can to bolster his rankings but also to make a living. Travel and accommodation to many of these events overseas, however, isn’t cheap, especially if booked at short notice, leaving the University of Washington education graduate facing something of a Catch 22 situation.
“It’s been difficult forging out on my own but I’ve got some points and a ranking now,” he says. “I’ve only been playing for a few months but I’m hoping to travel a bit more in the New Year to take part in different events.
“To do that, though, I need to bring in some money so I have to keep trying to win tournaments domestically which will allow me to boost my ranking and then get out to more tournaments abroad. When I was in America they paid for all the travel and all your other tennis costs. I don’t have a job or anything apart from tennis just now so I need to keep winning to help fund all that as a trip abroad can run into thousands of pounds if you’re away for a couple of weeks at a time.”
Some help on that front has come in the shape of the Tennis Scotland Open Tour which is Scotland’s biggest domestic competition with 18 events across the season and a prize pool of £76,000. Lumsden has won all four singles events he has entered so far, as well as last month’s national doubles championships with partner Hamish Stewart, with that prize money helping to fund his adventures on the ITF tour.
One final opportunity presents itself today and tomorrow at the TS Open Tour finals taking place at the University of Stirling and Lumsden is keen to end the year on a high.
“Tennis Scotland have done a great job putting these events on,” he adds. “You get match practice and there’s good prize money available which is attracting a high standard of competition. They’ve helped me a lot of these last few months and I’d love to win this one as well if I can.”
Lumsden admits he has spent the last six months trying to gradually adjust to fending for himself after his time in Washington and then at Mississippi State University where he gained his Masters. It has taken time to get used to living back in Lenzie after spending the majority of his adult life overseas in an environment where everything was taken care of.
“It’s been a tough adjustment but it’s been good and I’m happy to be back home,” he added. “I had five years over there where I was living with eight other team-mates in a house. I thought about staying over for a bit longer but my visa ran out and travelling around America isn’t that easy or cheap so I thought I would come back and play more in Europe.
“But it was a great experience being out there for all that time. At the start it was difficult just getting used to balancing my studies with tennis as you don’t have a lot of time for everything. But it was a lot of fun as you travel everywhere as a team and got to visit cool areas like California and Arizona. I definitely miss that atmosphere, the social life and the friends I made.”
Lumsden is already setting targets for 2024, eager to keep moving up the rankings to improve his chances of playing in the more lucrative tournaments.
“I’ve got goals I want to try to reach next year if I can,” he adds. “I want to half my ranking to start with as just now I’m up at around 1300 in the world. And if I can win a Futures 15K event too that would be a big step as well.”
He doesn’t need to look too far for inspiration, with sister Maia enjoying a stellar year that included a quarter-final appearance at Wimbledon, becoming British number one and making her first GB squad for the Billie Jean King Cup.
“I’m really proud of what she’s done this year,” says Ewen. “She’s improved her ranking a lot and enjoyed a lot of success so it’s great to see all her hard work paying off. We played a lot as kids and still hit together now when we can so it’s been amazing to see her progress.”
