{"id":2704,"date":"2026-08-28T14:30:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2704"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:30:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:30:37","slug":"serena-williams-makes-top-three-as-women-outnumber-men-for-first-time-in-tennis-highest-paid-top-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2704","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams makes top three as women outnumber men for \u2018first time\u2019 in tennis\u2019 highest-paid top 10"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tennis\u2019 top-10 highest-paid players over the past 12 months have been revealed, with more women than men making up the majority of the list for the \u2018first time ever\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/brettknight\/2026\/08\/28\/the-worlds-highest-paid-tennis-players-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\">Forbes<\/a>, the sport\u2019s biggest earners raked in a combined $333m (\u00a3245m) over the last year \u2013 17% up from 2025\u2019s $285m (\u00a3210m) and just behind 2020\u2019s $343m (\u00a3252.5m) haul.<\/p>\n<p>Even though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/jannik-sinner\">Jannik Sinner<\/a> is missing the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/us-open\">US Open<\/a> and Carlos Alcaraz was injured for the French Open and Wimbledon, the dominant duo still top the pile when it comes to financial supremacy.<\/p>\n<p>And despite being out of tennis for nearly four years, 44-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/serena-williams\">Serena Williams<\/a> still is in the top three, ahead of the likes of 24-time major winner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/novak-djokovic\">Novak Djokovic<\/a>, due to her off-court deals.<\/p>\n<p>World No 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/aryna-sabalenka\">Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> and two-time Grand Slam winner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/coco-gauff\">Coco Gauff<\/a> round off the top five, with the latter, in particular, being hugely marketable off the court.<\/p>\n<h2>More Tennis News<\/h2>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/carlos-alcaraz-warned-low-level-patrick-mouratoglou-reveals-us-open-worry\">Carlos Alcaraz: Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach reveals his big \u2018worry\u2019 over returning champion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/lost-aryna-sabalenkas-coach-pre-us-open-struggles-novak-djokovic-kobe-bryant\">Aryna Sabalenka \u2018kind of lost\u2019 as coach reveals pre-US Open struggles and Novak Djokovic \u2018solution\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Want more from Tennis365? Add us as<span>\u00a0<\/span><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=tennis365.com\" target=\"_blank\">a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a><span>\u00a0<\/span>for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, 23-time major winner Serena reportedly has a net worth of $400m (\u00a3295m) \u2013 making her the world\u2019s richest woman who made her fortune primarily as an athlete.<\/p>\n<p>She has been sponsored by Nike for 23 years and has partnerships with Heineken, Factor, and Ro, as well as becoming the face of latter\u2019s campaign around GLP-1 weight loss medications.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, she tops the list for off-court earnings at $40m (\u00a329.5m), with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/carlos-alcaraz\">Alcaraz<\/a> second on $38m (\u00a328m), and Sinner third on $35m (\u00a326m). In this category, Djokovic is behind those three and Gauff as well.<\/p>\n<p>On the flip side, Australian Open champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/elena-rybakina\">Elena Rybakina<\/a> and French Open winner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/alexander-zverev\">Alexander Zverev<\/a> are more modest off-court earners at $6m (\u00a34.4m) and $5m (\u00a33.7m) respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Another player who relies heavily on off-court endorsements is Chinese star Qinwen Zheng. Despite dropping outside the world\u2019s top 100 since having surgery on her elbow just over a year ago, she rakes in the cash through partnerships with Alipay, tea chain Chagee, and dairy producer Yili Group.<\/p>\n<p>Former top 10er and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka does not feature and although <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/alex-eala\">Alex Eala<\/a> is arguably the hottest property in tennis right now, the Filipina still has a way to go to crack this rich list.<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old is fast approaching $2m for on-court winnings this year but for now, she will have to bide her time. Below is a full breakdown of the top 10.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Tennis\u2019 top 10 highest-paid players\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Jannik Sinner \u2013 $58m \u2013 off court $35m<\/li>\n<li>Carlos Alcaraz \u2013 $53.7m \u2013 off court $38m<\/li>\n<li>Serena Williams \u2013 $40.1m \u2013 <strong>off court $40m<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Aryna Sabalenka \u2013 $36.1m \u2013 off court $23m<\/li>\n<li>Coco Gauff \u2013 $35.5m \u2013 off court $28m<\/li>\n<li>Novak Djokovic \u2013 $30.2m \u2013 off court $25m<\/li>\n<li>Qinwen Zheng \u2013 $22.6m \u2013 off court $22m<\/li>\n<li>Iga Swiatek \u2013 $20.5m \u2013 off court $15m<\/li>\n<li>Alexander Zverev \u2013 $18.7m \u2013 off court $5m<\/li>\n<li>Elena Rybakina \u2013 $17.4m \u2013 off court $6m<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>WHAT NEXT? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-features\/wta-us-open-points-sabalenka-rybakina-gauff-swiatek-anisimova-osaka-eala-drop\">US Open: How many points will Sabalenka, Rybakina, Gauff, Swiatek, Anisimova, Osaka, Eala drop?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/serena-williams-top-three-women-outnumber-men-tennis-highest-paid-top-10\">Serena Williams makes top three as women outnumber men for \u2018first time\u2019 in tennis\u2019 highest-paid top 10<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/\">Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tennis\u2019 top-10 highest-paid players over the past 12 months have been revealed, with more women than men making up the majority of the list for the \u2018first time ever\u2019. According to Forbes, the sport\u2019s biggest earners raked in a combined $333m (\u00a3245m) over the last year \u2013 17% up from 2025\u2019s $285m (\u00a3210m) and just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}