Tennis players earn millions through participation in tournaments as well as endorsing major brands.
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Tennis players are elite athletes. The participate in a sport that is physically demanding as well as having big bucks at stake. Success for these players results in massive brand endorsements of big brands which further inflates their worth. In the last few decades, the increase in prize money and the variety of endorsements for products that are available make Tennis very lucrative and playing the game is incredibly rewarding. In the current era, the likes of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka are considered the best in the business.
Djokovic, Federer and Nadal have won 18, 20 and 20 Grand Slam titles which is the most in the men’s field while Serena has won a staggering 23 Grand Slam titles and is on the cusp of breaking a new record if she wins another Grand Slam. Naomi Osaka is one of the best players currently while in the men, there are youngsters like Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Dominic Thiem and Alexander Zverev who are all staking a claim to be one of the best players in the era after Djokovic, Nadal and Federer.
With so much success for the elite athletes, it will be interesting to see what their net worth will be in the sport. Here is the net worth of all the top players in Tennis and the numbers will blow anyone’s mind away.
Novak Djokovic is the leader of the pack when it comes to life-time prize money. From his playing career till now, Djokovic has accumulated a total of USD 147, 751, 252 in prize money with USD 21, 146, 145 coming in a single season which was in 2015. In addition, Djokovic also has plenty of endorsements from elite brands like Lacoste, Head, Adidas, Jacob’s Creek, Peugeot, Uniqlo, Seiko and ANZ.
Roger Federer was the first person to win 20 Grand Slams and he became the first Tennis player to reach the Forbes list of ‘World’s Highest Paid Athletes’. Despite struggling with injuries and form for the last couple of years, Federer is still in the prime of his greatness when it comes to skill. He has a total of USD 129,946,683 and he has endorsements with Japanese clothing company Uniqlo and Swiss companies Nationale Suisse, Credit Suisse, Rolex, Lindt, Sunrise, and Jura Elektroapparate. In 2010, his endorsement by Mercedes-Benz China was extended into a global partnership deal. His other sponsors include Gillette, Wilson, Barilla, and Moët & Chandon. Previously, he was an ambassador for Nike, NetJets, Emmi AG, and for Maurice Lacroix.
For an individual who has won a Grand Slam 13 times, he deserves to be a bonafide great. But, Rafael Nadal is much more than his numbers. He is level with Federer when it comes to number of Grand Slams, has an Olympic gold in both singles and doubles as well as Davis Cup success. Basically, Nadal has achieved everything that is needed. His life-time prize money is US 123, 843,596. In addition, he has been sponsored by Kia Motors since 2006. Nike serves as Nadal’s clothing and shoe sponsor.
Nadal is also the face of Lanvin’s L’Homme Sport cologne. Nadal is the international ambassador for Quely, a company from his native Mallorca that manufactures biscuits, bakery and chocolate-coated products. Nadal replaced Cristiano Ronaldo as the new face of Emporio Armani Underwear and Armani Jeans for the spring/summer 2011 collection. This was the first time that the label has chosen a tennis player for the job.
Serena Williams has achieved everything that there is in the world of Tennis. She has won the Grand Slam in both singles and doubles, is on the cusp of equaling a long-standing record and will go down in history as one of the greatest players ever. Her prize money of USD 94,236,271 is the highest for a woman Tennis player and is comfortably ahead of many players. Her endorsements with Puma and Nike make her an elite athlete. Serena also has endorsement deals with Gatorade, Delta Air Lines, Audemars Piguet, Aston Martin, Pepsi, Beats by Dre headphones, Mission Athletecare, Berlei bras, OPI Products, OnePiece, IBM, Mini, Intel, Tempur and Chase Bank while she is also the Chief Sporting Officer for Aston Martin.
In the last couple of years, there have been many players who have earned more than USD 10-15 million among the women. Ashleigh Barty earned USD 11,307,587 in the 2019 season while Angelique Kerber earned over USD 10 million. The likes of Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova earned over USD 20 million in their playing days in the 80s and the 90s while Martina Hingis was close to USD 25 million in her playing days. Simona Halep has earned USD 37 million while Maria Sharapova is third on the list of all-time prize money winners with USD 38,777,962.
