{"id":60015,"date":"2026-08-29T23:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/60015\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T23:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T23:06:24","slug":"power-players-forbes-issues-highest-paid-tennis-players-list-tennis-now-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/60015\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Players: Forbes Issues Highest-Paid Tennis Players List \u2013 Tennis Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

August<\/p>\n

World No. 1 Jannik Sinner is the world’s highest-paid tennis player, Forbes reports.<\/p>\n

Richard PagliaroAugust 28, 20263 minute read<\/p>\n

By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, August 28, 2026
Photo credit: Explora Journeys<\/p>\n

NEW YORK\u2014A right knee injury knocked Jannik Sinner out of the US Open.<\/p>\n

World No. 1 Sinner still emerges as a major winner in New York today.<\/p>\n

Reigning Wimbledon champion Sinner supplants rival Carlos Alcaraz to top the annual Forbes World\u2019s Highest-Paid Tennis Players list of 2026. Read Forbes editor Brett Knight\u2019s Forbes article on tennis\u2019 top paid stars here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2026 season is a landmark campaign for tennis finance. For the first time ever there are more women than men comprising tennis\u2019 Top 10 earners on Forbes\u2019 ranking list.<\/p>\n

Six of the world\u2019s Top 10 tennis players on the Forbes list are women.<\/p>\n

The return of 44-year-old superstar Serena Williams, who earned an estimated $40.1 million over the past year helped elevate women to make a major impact on the Forbes Top 10 list.<\/p>\n

The 23-time champion Serena Williams ranked third overall among tennis champion earners over the past year.<\/p>\n

Only No. 1 Sinner, who tops the list with $58 Million in earnings thanks to his sponsorship deals with Nike, Rolex, Head, Gucci and Explora Journeys, and Alcaraz surpass Serena in earnings.<\/p>\n

The Wimbledon winner Sinner supplants Alcaraz, who beat Sinner in the 2025 US Open final to regain No. 1, for the top spot among tennis earners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old Alcaraz, an ambassador for Nike, Babolat, Rolex, and Louis Vuitton, comes in at $53.7 million in earnings over the last year.<\/p>\n

Last year, Alcaraz led the list earning an estimated $48.3 million, before taxes and management fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three of the Top 5 players on the Forbes list are WTA stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who collected $36.1 Million, is fourth and two-time major winner Coco Gauff, who made $35.5 million in total earnings over the past year is No. 5. That\u2019s a slight drop for Gauff, who was the highest-paid female athlete in the world the prior year earning $37.2 million. That made the Delray Beach-born baseliner third on Forbes\u2019 2025 tennis financial champions list.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour life is still gonna be your life regardless if you win or lose,\u201d Gauff told Forbes. \u201cAnd at that point, you play free.\u201d<\/p>\n

These players round out Forbes\u2019 2026 top earners list:<\/p>\n

At No. 6, Grand Slam King Novak Djokovic earned $30.2 million.<\/p>\n

No. 7 Olympic gold-medal champion Zheng Qinwen made $22.6 million.<\/p>\n

No. 8 was Iga Swiatek at $20.5 million, with Alexander Zverev in ninth place at $18.7 million. Rounding out the Top 10 is Elena Rybakina, who collected $17.4 million.<\/p>\n

A few more interesting facts from Forbes editor Brett Knight\u2019s Forbes article on tennis\u2019 top paid stars<\/a>:<\/p>\n

*The Top 10 highest-paid tennis players in the world combined to earn an estimated $333 million over the past year. That\u2019s a 17 percent rise over the 2025 totals. Forbes attributes that to \u201cthe growing earning power of women\u2019s players\u201d as well as players uniting to demand a greater piece of major revenues from the four Grand Slams.<\/p>\n

*No. 1 Sinner\u2019s $58 Million in earnings, include a total of $23 Million in prize money over the last 12 months, is the top figure to ever appear on the Forbes list despite the fact the Italian has been sidelined with a knee injury since July.<\/p>\n

*Sinner is just the fourth player to top the Forbes annual earning list in its 19-year history. Sinner dethroned Alcaraz for the top spot and joins Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic to hold the title as Forbes financial champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August World No. 1 Jannik Sinner is the world’s highest-paid tennis player, Forbes reports. Richard PagliaroAugust 28, 20263…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[219],"class_list":["post-60015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jannik-sinner","tag-jannik-sinner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}