Bianca Andreescu spills secrets about cut-throat business tactics used by sponsors in tennis world

Bianca Andreescu recently let her fans in on the dubious practices of tennis sponsors. According to the Canadian, many organizations require the ATP and WTA pros they're backing to play a "certain number of tournaments". She also gave a first-person account of an unnamed sponsor who had dropped her in 2020 after she failed to come through with a commitment due to a knee injury.

Andreescu has endured a tough time on the women's circuit since winning her maiden Major title at the 2019 US Open. After a back injury that she sustained in August 2023 kept her out of action for nearly a year, the former World No. 4 made her much-awaited comeback during the European claycourt swing in 2024 and made some inroads at the big tournaments.

Unfortunately, Bianca Andreescu's momentum was stalled once again in the first few months of 2025 as she was on the sidelines due to an emergency appendectomy procedure. The 24-year-old has since struggled in her return to the WTA Tour. As the Canadian continues her bid to get her career back on track, she didn't refrain from giving an inside scoop on her experience with tennis sponsorships.

Speaking to the National, the 2019 US Open champion recounted how her various injury layoffs had cost her nearly every sponsor.

"With certain sponsors, you have to play a certain number of tournaments... And yeah, that can be difficult for sure," Bianca Andreescu said. "Because I'm sure we all want to play day in and day out. But for me, for instance, I haven't had that. So, it did come to the cost of losing sponsors. I lost almost every one of my sponsors because of that."

She then reminisced about a rather bizarre situation with one of her sponsors from five years ago.

"There was one issue with one sponsor, that if I didn't do a commercial on this specific day, they would have wiped out my contract," she added. "And so, I was like, 'Hey, can you compromise a little bit here?' I didn't do it. They said, 'OK, that's fine. We'll do it another time.' And then, bam! I didn't have that contract."

Although Andreescu returned to action in April of this year, she has struggled to make her mark, and her latest exit at the French Open is a testimony to that.

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Bianca Andreescu lost in the second qualifying round of the French Open 2025

Bianca Andreescu hits a forehand at the French Open 2025 | Image Source: Getty

Although Bianca Andreescu made a return to form from her appendectomy procedure last month, beating former World No. 3 Elena Rybakina en route to a third-round result at the Italian Open, she couldn't bring the same form to the qualifying event at this year's French Open.

The 24-year-old failed to make the main draw in Paris for the first time in her last six appearances at the claycourt Major, wasting a set lead and a match point before succumbing 6-2, 6-7(5), 4-6 to Japan's Nao Hibino in their second qualifying-round match.