The highest-earning female athlete in 2023 was Coco Gauff, according to American sports media company Sportico.
The company's annual list of top earners was released on Wednesday, and the 19-year-old American topped the list for the first time with an estimated annual haul of $22.7 million.
Gauff earned $6.7 million on court this year, including $3 million for winning her first Grand Slam title at the US Open. Her $16 million in endorsement earnings comes from contracts with not only her apparel and racquet companies, New Balance and Head, but from other deals with Barilla pasta, Bose, UPS and Rolex.
Last year, Gauff signed a five-year extension with New Balance, and launched her first signature shoe -- the only active WTA player with such a distinction.
Nine Hologic WTA Tour players landed on the list in total, with seven of the Top 10 for the second year running. Iga Swiatek finishing second to Gauff with a total of $21.9 million earned, nearly $10 million of which came in her on-court earnings. Off the court, Swiatek has deals with Infosys, Visa, Polish insurer PZU, Rolex and Porsche Poland.
Skier Eileen Gu ranked third, as she joined Gauff and Swiatek at the $20 million mark.
There is a new tennis 👑 on top@CocoGauff is the highest-paid female athlete in the world at $22.7m- ($16m of which are endorsements.)
— Sportico (@Sportico) December 6, 2023
For two decades, the title of highest-paid female athlete has belonged to one of a trio of tennis stars in @serenawilliams, @MariaSharapova… pic.twitter.com/KL1qDFekkN
Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula ranked fourth through eighth, with Raducanu ($16.2 million) and Osaka ($15 million) landing on the list of the strength of their endorsement portfolio after missing much of and all of, respectively, 2023 as a result of injuries and pregnancy.
Rounding out the list were Leylah Fernandez ($6.1 million), who cracked the Top 15 on the strength of deals with Lululemon, Morgan Stanley, Subway, Google and Gatorade that came in the aftermath of her breakthrough run to the 2021 US Open final, and Ons Jabeur ($5.7 million).
Tennis players have historically been well accounted for in highest annual earnings for much of the past two decades. In that time, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Osaka have topped the list, and in 2019, Sportico's entire Top 10 of the richest female athletes were tennis players. In 2021, Osaka brought in a record combined earnings of $55.2 million.
