Who are the Tennis Players with the Highest Earnings in 2021?

When we talk about individual and popular sports, one of the first that comes to mind is tennis. Certainly, this discipline has millions of followers around the world, not to mention that the prizes awarded at each Grand Slam are usually quite attractive. The 2021 season for the most mediatic tennis players has been somewhat complex, but that has not prevented them from continuing to generate profits both on and off the courts.

As reported by Forbes magazine recently, among the ten highest paid tennis players this year they earned about $ 320 million collectively, an amount that has been decreased by 6% compared to last year because of the pandemic. However, a reality that very few know is that these athletes work as independent contractors, that is, they do not have a salary, team or league to support them in difficult times, so each event canceled during the last 18 months represented a serious problem for their budget.

The most prominent tennis players have the particularity of having higher earnings when they are not in action, this due to the sponsorship deals that each one has. The latest players to enter the top-10 are: Kei Nishikori ($ 26 million), Daniil Medvedev ($ 13.9 million), Dominic Thiem ($ 8.9 million), Stefanos Tsitsipas ($ 8.1 million) and Ashleigh Barty ($ 5.8 million). Do you know how much money the top five made?

Rafael Nadal

The Spaniard has found himself in the need to momentarily withdraw from competitions in order to overcome an injury and thus return stronger for 2022. Rafa has managed to generate about 23 million dollars just for being the image of brands like Nike, KIA, Babolat, Richard Mille and Amstel. To this figure we must add the earnings inside the courts to reach 27 million that puts Nadal in the fifth place of this list with very little margin of distance over Kei Nishikori.

Novak Djokovic

The tennis player who was in the eye of the hurricane in the past Olympic Games was on the verge of getting a Golden Slam (winner of the four Grand Slam and the gold medal in the Olympic Games). But that has not been a reason for disappointment, because at the United States Open he aims to lift his 21st Grand Slam and thus take over the record he shares with Federer and Nadal. In terms of his total earnings, of the 38 million dollars he generated in 2021, 30 are due to his sponsorships: Raiffeisen Bank, Lemero and Hublot joined in this year.

Serena Williams

After many years leading in the female category, for the first time the American has been surpassed by another tennis player. Despite the fact that since 2017 she has not won a Grand Slam and that she has lost ground in the WTA ranking, the youngest of the Williams sisters has up to 20 sponsors with whom she generates about 40 million dollars and that could be more in the future if we add her investment in a new franchise within the United States Women's Soccer League. Added to what she earns on the courts, her income reaches 41.8 million.

Naomi Osaka

There has not been a tennis player with as much impact in recent years as Naomi. The 23-year-old athlete decided to prioritize her mental health over any Grand Slam this year, with the support of several of her sponsors such as Nike, Louis Vuitton and MasterCard. Although she did not have a good Olympics after falling in the third round, she was one of the most famous faces of the event. Regarding her total earnings, these exceed 60 million dollars, of which 55 are based on sponsorships.

Roger Federer

What else can we say about the Swiss? They are 16 consecutive years with him at the helm as the tennis player with the highest earnings. Despite being equaled by Nadal and Djokovic as the biggest winner in Grand Slam tournaments, Federer remains number one in sponsorship earnings, becoming the sixth active athlete to reach a billion dollars in his entire career. For this 2021 he earned 90.6 million dollars and that could be more with the ambitious projects that he has around the corner.