When you see a top tennis player participating in a 250-level tournament, you can easily conclude that they were paid an appearance fee to play. The appearance fee for Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic can be over a million dollars depending on the tournament.

Finances of tennis tournaments have been constrained for the past year due to COVID-19. The inability to have fans in stadiums and reduced sponsor interest has led tournaments to slash prize money.

This has also hampered the tournament’s ability to pay appearance fees for top players. Tournaments rarely speak about appearance fees though the practice is common around the world.

This week, the tournament director for the Acapulco event in Mexico, Raul Zurutuza,  said that the tournament will not feature Rafael Nadal this year because the event can’t afford to pay Nadal’s appearance fee of $500,000 to $1 million.

Acapulco will have Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Diego Schwartzman headline the tournament. These players have taken a cut in their appearance fee, according to Zurutuza. The appearance fee for these players is also substantially lower than Nadal’s.

With a lot of tournaments being canceled, many top players have shown willingness to reduce their appearance fee. But as the Acapulco case shows, top players such as Nadal still hold considerable clout over the tournaments.

Miami Open organizers don’t remember Sofia Kenin winning the 2020 Australian Open. Or the fact that she reached the finals at the French Open. In a tone-deaf press release promoting the tournament, the organizers emphasized that grand slam champions such as Iga Swiatek, Simona Halep, and Bianca Andreescu were playing at the tournament but forgot to mention that Kenin was also a grand slam champion.

Why did a Miami tournament ignore one of its own – Sofia Kenin is a Florida native. She is the only American grand slam champion in recent years.

Kenin and her team had felt for some time that she doesn’t get the respect she deserves. She hasn’t been able to sign up lucrative sponsorship deals despite fantastic success on the court. Players such as Amanda Anisimova, who have far fewer accomplishments have signed blockbuster sponsorship contracts.

It was not always this way. Miami Open promoted Kenin for many years. Here she is with Kim Clijsters when was only six.