It is the combined effect of growing gender equality and duopoly in vogue. Because on the one hand the economic gap between men and women, also in terms of prize money, in tennis is progressively narrowing. And on the other hand, the excessive power of those two, Carlos and Jannik, is draining resources – legitimately, with victories – from the rest of their colleagues on the ATP circuit. So it happens that the ranking of individual earnings in 2025, analyzed in detail by Sportyhas strong feminine hues. Like never before.
Let’s leave aside the first two unattainable positions, where Alcaraz and Sinner collect over 40 million dollars between them – 2.1 more for the Spaniard than the Italian – the result of 14 ATP titles overall. In third place we find Aryna Sabalenka, number one in the WTA ranking, not far behind at 15 million dollars. Fourth Iga Swiatek, with 10.1. Fifth Elena Rybakina, sixth Coco Gauff. Amanda Anisimova eighth, close behind Alexander Zverev. It is from then on that the trend reverses, with 15 male tennis players between ninth and twenty-seventh place (our Jasmine Paolini is the first Italian, in 15th place, just ahead of Djokovic).
Strange to look at? Not so much. The long-distance duel between Alcaraz and Sinner effectively left crumbs to the competition, including cash bonuses, creating a gap in the men’s category that hasn’t been seen in a long time – and with connotations that have never been so exponential, given that the entire seasonal prize money has more than tripled in the last twenty years. Meanwhile, on the women’s side there was a notable balance, with five different winners in as many main tournaments – Grand Slam plus WTA Finals: Keys, Gauff, Swiatek, Sabalenka and Rybakina. The result is a much more homogeneous distribution of earnings, which reflects the alternation of ever new protagonists on the playing field.
The gap is even smaller if you look at the aggregate value: the prize money for the top ten tennis players on each tour in 2025 was the highest ever, and 20% higher than in 2024 (from 57.4 to 71.3 million dollars); for men the trend is the same, but less pronounced (from 80.8 to 87.8 million). The path towards gender balance in the discipline is more than clear – even considering individual tournaments: the victory prize of the WTA Finals, for example, this year was higher than that of the ATP Finals (5.24 million against 5.07). And seven of the ten highest-paid athletes in the world in 2025 are tennis players. While Alcaraz and Sinner are outside the top fifty men. It must mean something.
