(Reuters) – Australian Jason Kubler said the prize money he has earned by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon with a win over Jack Sock is a “life changer”, adding that it would allow him to invest in himself.
The 29-year-old, ranked 99th in the world, eliminated Sock 6-2 4-6 5-7 7-6(4) 6-3 on Saturday and reached the last 16 of a Grand Slam for the first time, guaranteeing him 190,000 pounds ($230,000) in prize money.
“Yeah, well, a life changer to an extent,” Kubler told reporters. “I can see a physiotherapist on the road more often, definitely more weeks with a coach. I give myself more opportunity to hopefully do something like this again.”
Kubler added that he had thought about quitting tennis after an extended spell on the sidelines following a knee injury in 2016, which led to him taking up coaching in an effort to make ends meet.
“There’s definitely been tough times, just like I’m sure with a lot of tennis players,” Kubler said. “There have been times where I’ve gone, ‘maybe I’ll look into something else’.
“The closest would have been when I was doing the coaching. I did a bit of coaching and hitting with some players. I probably did that for two or three months when I didn’t have so much money.
“I was actually enjoying it. I was starting to make, for me, make some all right money, and I was like, ‘I could really be happy doing this’. That was definitely a moment where I could have stopped.”
Kubler will next face 11th-seeded American Taylor Fritz.
($1 = 0.8269 pounds)
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
