In 2013, Paula Liverpool, single mother of Sachia Vickery, put together all of the money she had at her disposal so that Sachia could go to the United States Tennis Association National Junior Championships in San Diego. Liverpool and Vickery, who live in Miramar, Florida, were going to stay with a friend instead of a hotel, in order to save on accommodations. After a few days, however, the friend had to make room for unexpected relatives, leaving Vickery and Liverpool without anywhere to stay, and without the budget for a hotel.
“I told Kathy Rinaldi, (the national coach for women’s tennis), I’m going to have to bring Sachia home,†I don’t have any money,†said Liverpool. “She said ‘No, you can’t take her home, she could win the tournament…’She made a phone call and the USTA paid for a room for Sachia to stay.† Liverpool, however, had to leave.
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“My mom (Sachia’s grandmother) said don’t worry. God is in charge.â€
A lot was at stake for then 17-year-old Vickery. If she won the National Championships, she would get a wildcard to compete in the U.S. Open and have the opportunity to earn “real†prize money at WTA events. Liverpool was financially stretched to her maximum, meaning a loss would have likely meant the end of Vickery’s career.
“She ended up winning the tournament,†says a very proud Liverpool. Vickery not only went to the U.S. Open in 2013, but she also won her first round match, and went on to win a total of $50,000 in prize money that year.
“It did change a lot… just playing the bigger tournaments. The expectations were a bit more and I wasn’t used to that,†says Vickery.
Getting to the Grand Slams
Not only were the expectations more, but so were the costs. When Vickery started playing tennis at the age of 5, the costs were about $600 a month. Liverpool, a school teacher who migrated to the United States in 1987 from a small mining town called Kwakwani in Guyana, took a job as an agent, and then a flight attendant at now defunct airline, Pan Am soon after coming to the U.S.
When Pan Am went under in 1991, the company sent its employees to college. Liverpool took advantage of the opportunity, earned a degree, and got a job as a paralegal where she earned $35,000 a year. It was, however, still a struggle to raise Vickery and her now 23-year-old brother Dominique Mitchell, who plays football in graduate school at Campbell University after playing at South Carolina State University, and is working to make it into the NFL.
In addition to the typical costs associated with raising two young children on her own, Vickery’s tennis costs were rising dramatically. By the time she was 12-years-old, Liverpool was paying about $1,000 a month.
Undeterred in her quest to make sure her children could pursue their athletic dreams, Liverpool–who was now working in the admissions office at Kaplan University–began bartending at night at a club in a dangerous part of Miami. She earned nearly $2,000 a month in tips. In addition, her mother moved from Guyana to Florida to help mitigate childcare costs.
“So, I worked at Kaplan full time from nine to five, and then at nights I bartended from about 9:00 p.m., and I came home at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. I worked day and night for a couple of years. That’s the only way I could pay for her lessons and save a couple of hundred dollars a month if something happened.â€
In addition to a lifelong commitment to always save in case “something happened,†which Liverpool says was instilled in her by her mother, she is equally committed to staying out of debt. She has never borrowed money or had a credit card.
“Debt is too much of a stressful commitment to me,†says Liverpool. “I’ll always figure something out. We may have had to forgo a tournament to make a mortgage payment, but I have faith in myself, and my children learn by my actions. Many players borrow money from wealthy people and believe they’ll pay them back when they earn prize money. That seems like insanity to me. What happens if you get injured? I’ve instilled this in my children and taught them to live within their means. Part of having a successful life means being debt free,†she adds.
“It was tough to watch, especially as the oldest child,†says Mitchell. “I saw some of the nights where she would have bills scattered on the ground and she was in tears. We would have close to nothing, but she always found a way,†he adds.
Mitchell also found a way to help out by receiving full athletic scholarships to college and grad school, and getting jobs to pay his expenses, so that he would not be a financial burden on his mother.
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A Tough Way to Make a Living
Before Vickery won the National Junior Championships and was able to play in Grand Slams, she played in International Tennis Federation (ITF) events, and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments. Players earn prize money depending on how far they advance. They foot the bill for the majority of their own expenses and travel, as well as the expenses,
travel, and fees, of their coaches and agents. Vickery says the tournaments could easily cost thousands of dollars each, so they had to pick and choose carefully, weighing the costs against the opportunities for prize money.“In other sports, like football, you make money upfront, before you even start the season. So, obviously if it’s that way, it’s much easier to splurge. Tennis, you make money based on how you perform. You don’t really get that opportunity to splurge, because you don’t know how much you’re going to make one week. It fluctuates up and down,†says Vickery.
When Vickery got into the Grand Slams, after winning the National Junior Championships, the money began to change. “In a Grand Slam, you’re guaranteed at least $30,000, in the others, you’re guaranteed around $2,000,†says Liverpool.
Vickery has also been able to earn points in ITF, WTA, and Grand Slam events bumping her world ranking to No. 133, and prize winnings totaling $328,948. This has allowed Liverpool to stop working and travel with Vickery full time.
In addition to her prize money, Vickery has sponsorships from Nike, which provides her with clothes, and Technifiber, which provides her with racquets, and Lagardere Unlimited. The prize money, sponsorships, and ranking, however, have not changed their lives as one might expect, or drastically changed how they live.
“I would say we cover 99.9%,†says Liverpool. “The ballpark figure of what it takes to play tennis at this level is $150,000 to $170,000 a year,†she adds.
“If you’re ranked 100th and below, you’re pretty much breaking even. If you’re ranked 100 or higher, you’re making money,†says Martin Morse,  CEO of The MM Group. “Your ability to make money affects your play. If you can’t pay for the best coach, you aren’t going to keep getting better, and break into that top 100,†he adds.
Pulling Together to Get to the Top
Liverpool and her children say the secret to their financial balancing act is largely threefold.
1. Communication: “We run the family like a business,†says Mitchell. “Whenever there’s money coming in, we have a family meeting or a phone meeting to discuss our financial needs, how we’re going to spend the money, what it’s going toward, and how much we can save. We’re doing this all the time. We meet, have phone meetings, whatever it takes to keep everything as close knit as possible. If there’s no communication, you don’t know where the money is going,†he adds.
2. Budget and Frugal Living: Liverpool and Vickery often stay with host families instead of hotels, and use discount housing opportunities like Airbnb, so that they can save money by cooking their own meals when they’re on the road. They also use Wi-Fi as often as possible to cut down on data usage costs for their cell phone plans. In addition, they hold each other accountable to their budget. “I was planning to remove the carpets from our home and put wood floors in for $6,500. Dominque pointed out that we don’t need to do that right now and were bumping up against our budget. We decided to save the money instead,†says Liverpool.
3. Keep Your Eye on the Prize: The family says the most important factor when it comes to staying on track is for them to keep their eye on what they are trying to achieve.
“Just to be a top player. I just want to be a top player,†says Vickery, and she’s got the game, set, and love of her family to help her keep pursuing her dreams.