When it’s all said and done for Michael Zheng’s tennis career, he probably won’t lose much sleep over the $150,000 he isn’t allowed to bring home from the 2026 Australian Open.
Barring some type of catastrophic injury or other life-altering event, the 21-year-old American who has won back-to-back NCAA singles titles for Columbia University is going to make millions over the next decade playing on the ATP Tour.
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But this isn’t necessarily about the money. It’s about the principle. And the NCAA’s rule limiting athletes to reimbursement for “actual and necessary expenses” if they play pro events in sports like tennis or golf needs to go.
Zheng lost his second-round match to No. 32 seed Corentin Moutet on Wednesday, retiring early in the fourth set due to a left leg injury. Unless plans change, he’ll return to the U.S., finish out his final semester at Columbia and play the team season this spring before becoming a full-time pro.
And he’ll do it without most of the $150,000 he earned by winning three matches in qualifying and then upsetting former top-15 player Sebastian Korda in the first round of the main draw.
That’s because the NCAA, for all the restrictions it has lifted on college athletes’ ability to cash in on their marketing rights, has not yet changed its arcane rules on collecting prize money.
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“I’ll talk to our coach try to figure out what’s the deal with the prize money if I’m allowed to take it or not,” Zheng told reporters after the Korda win. “I’ll figure it out after the tournament is over.”
Though Zheng added that he heard “rumors” he could collect the money because he’s in the final semester of his senior year, an NCAA spokesperson simply directed Yahoo Sports to the rulebook, which seems unambiguous:
“In tennis, after initial, full-time collegiate enrollment, an individual may accept prize money based on place finish or performance in an athletics event. Such prize money may not exceed actual and necessary expenses and may be provided only by the sponsor of the event. The calculation of actual and necessary expenses shall not include the expenses or fees of anyone other than the individual (e.g., coach’s fees or expenses, family member’s expenses).”
That rule might make sense if you want to draw a bright line between being paid for “marketing rights” — which is the basis for the entire NIL charade — and being paid to play college sports.
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But let’s break this down in common sense terms.
On Monday night, we watched a College Football Playoff championship game where both rosters were likely making more than $20 million collectively. Carson Beck, the Miami quarterback, reportedly earned $4 million by himself from a combination of sources including a revenue share agreement with the university.
Technically, Zheng has the same opportunity to negotiate NIL deals. He can go get a racket sponsor, a shoe sponsor, an apparel sponsor anytime he wants and could get some revenue share cash or NIL money through a university-affiliated collective if he wanted.
But here in the real world, excuse us for rolling our eyes at the NCAA still trying to distinguish between these huge sums of money available to high-profile football and basketball players and somebody like Zheng being allowed to take home cash from a pro tennis tournament because he won some matches.
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If anything, Zheng should be rewarded for the fact that he still wants to play college tennis this spring rather than jumping right onto the ATP Tour, where he’s already up to No. 145 in the world.
That’s the reality of Zheng’s situation: By playing his last semester for Columbia rather than pro events in Dallas, Delray Beach and Acapulco next month that could launch him further up the rankings and automatically qualify him for the other three Grand Slams, he is potentially costing himself more money both short and long-term than what he would take home from Australia.
Again, how does that make any sense in 2026 when the original intent of these rules — separating amateurism from professionalism — has already been smashed to pieces? What harm comes from a small number of exceptional college tennis players or golfers taking home real prize money if they happen to qualify for a major or even get a wild card to compete in their hometown pro tournament?
Heck, if the tournaments had some imagination, they could even just restructure how they give out prize money to college players and call it an “NIL bonus.” Voila, it’s legal! And if not? Good luck in court.
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In fact, this issue is already on its way to court thanks to a class-action lawsuit led by former women’s college tennis stars Reese Brantmeier (North Carolina) and Maya Joint (Texas) over prize money they were not able to collect as amateurs. According to a December report in the Carolina Journal, recent court filings suggest that a settlement could be coming sometime in January or February.
Hopefully that potential settlement will include the NCAA scrapping these rules altogether. They don’t make sense anymore.
Think of this way: Zheng has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s good enough to be a factor on the pro tour. Beyond what he did at the Australian Open, he won three ATP Challenger-level events last year, which is akin to AAA baseball. He’s ready.
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But he hasn’t gone that route yet for one reason: He wants to finish his psychology degree at Columbia. Yes, he’s in college for education. What a novel concept.
Meanwhile, we have football and basketball players applying for sixth and seventh years of eligibility — not for academic reasons but because if you’re not quite good enough to make it in the NBA or NFL, college has become an ATM with few restrictions.
When asked prior to Monday’s national championship game if he had class last week, Beck replied, “No class, I graduated two years ago.”
So what are we doing here?
College tennis has been legitimized enough on the international stage where it’s now a real option for young people who are headed to the pros but not quite ready for the full-time grind. A handful of top-20 players on the women’s and men’s tours led by Ben Shelton, Emma Navarro and Diana Shnaider can carry that banner for the NCAA as the best place to develop athletically, socially and academically.
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Zheng could be next.
“The NCAA has definitely prepared me for moments like these,” he said. “When you’re playing for college you’re playing for something bigger than yourself. I felt more nervous going into the finals of NCAAs than this match, surprisingly, but it shows college tennis is a real pathway to the pros. My win today proves that.”
But logically and morally, preventing Zheng from taking home what he earned — yes, earned — at the Australian Open makes no sense in the current era of college sports. He wants to be a college student for a little longer, to finish the journey to a degree. Isn’t that how it should be? In an era where so many college athletes are making millions of dollars, it wouldn’t take much compromise in this case for the NCAA to get on the right side of history.