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With $2.3 million in tournament winnings, Madison Keys is the current leader in tennis prize money won during the first month of this year. The 29-year-old American took home about $2.15 million when she won her first career major title at the 2025 Australian Open. She has been on fire to start the season, winning the Adelaide International earlier in January and earning an additional $164,000.
Jannik Sinner, the men’s singles winner in Melbourne, ranks second with $2.15 million in year-to-date prize money. The men’s world No. 1 received the same payout as Keys for his win down under, but has not played any other tournaments in 2025. Just 23 years old, Sinner has won three majors and is already eighth all-time in ATP career prize money, with a total of more than $39 million.
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The Australian Open upped its total purse by roughly 11% for 2025, although its winner’s prize is still lower than what the other three Grand Slam events offered in 2024. Men and women earn equal prize money at the majors, which award the largest sums on the calendar except for the tours’ finals.
The next big opportunity for women’s players to cash in will be at the Qatar Open in February. The next lucrative event for the men will be the Indian Wells Open in March, which had an equal purse of roughly $9 million for the men and women last year.
How does prize money work in tennis?
When tennis players participate in tournaments, they are compensated based on the round in which they lose, with payouts escalating somewhat exponentially as the player continues to win. A first-round loser at 2024 Indian Wells received $30,050, while the tournament runner-up won $585,000 and the champion $1.1 million.
Singles draws generally pay out more money than doubles draws, but singles players also pad their earnings by participating in doubles at events that feature both formats.
The money at stake in different tournaments varies greatly. Throughout the year, there are 250-level, 500-level and 1000-level events; the number refers to how many ranking points winners receive. Tournaments with more points on the line generally pay more money.
Which tennis tournament has the highest prize money?
The four majors—the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open—award 2,000 ranking points. They also have larger purses.
For instance, the 2024 U.S. Open allocated $3.6 million to each singles winner, while the 2024 Winston-Salem Open, an ATP 250 event, dished out $107,000 to its champion the prior week. Many pros also compete on the Challenger Tour, where players typically take home low five figures for winning an event.
Although the ATP Finals and WTA Finals at the end of the calendar draw much less public attention than the majors, they are extremely lucrative for the exclusive group of eight participants. In fact, the $4.41 million that Novak Djokovic earned for winning the 2023 ATP Finals is nearly more than he made for winning the 2023 Australian Open ($2 million) and the 2023 French Open ($2.5 million) combined.
Do men make more than women in tennis?
Last year, 15 women and 28 men earned at least $2 million. The four majors have all paid both genders equally since 2007, but many marquee events in which men and women both play simultaneously still pay men far more. For instance, the Cincinnati Open paid out approximately $6.8 million to male players in 2024 and just $3.2 million to female players, while prize money disparities at lower-level tournaments are even worse.
In 2022, Iga Świątek was so dominant on the court that she nearly became the first woman to be the highest-paid tennis player in a single season since 2003, when Kim Clijsters ($4.47 million) out-earned Roger Federer ($4 million). In 2024, however, the gender pay gap at the top of the sport was still as large as it had been a decade prior. The top 10 male players collectively earned $80.7 million in 2023, 41% more than the $57.4 million earned by the top 10 female players.
In the global professional sports landscape, tennis still offers the most earning potential for women, as six of the 10 highest-paid female athletes in 2024 played tennis. Many tournaments have committed to offering equal pay in the future, but there is still much work to be done to close the gap overall.
Male tennis stars also benefit significantly from ATP bonus pools, which share additional profits with the game’s top players, with payouts are predicated on year-end ranking and participation in a certain number of 1000-level tournaments. The pool ballooned to $21.3 million in 2023, where it remained for 2024.
Which tennis player has the most prize money?
For both genders, tennis is dominated financially by the elites. Last year, Djokovic earned nearly four times that of the 11th highest-paid man, Taylor Fritz, and there was a similar ratio between Swiatek’s earnings and those of the 11th highest-paid woman, Petra Kvitova.
The ATP Finals and WTA Finals both had purses exceeding $14 million this year. These tournaments only include the top eight players in the rankings, which contributes to the top-heavy prize money distribution in tennis. They are essentially “rich get richer” events to end the season.
Djokovic’s 2023 ATP Finals win gave him the sixth-most prize money ever in a season, with inflation giving him a boost over his own dominant 2011 and 2012 campaigns. He now holds four of the top 10 prize money seasons of all time and has a $50 million lead over Rafael Nadal for the most career winnings. Djokovic’s lifetime prize money totals $185 million.
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