Carlos Alcaraz has been named the highest-paid player in tennis over the past 12 months, topping Sportico’s annual earnings ranking with an estimated $62.9 million despite a wrist injury that ruled him out of both the French Open and Wimbledon.
The 23-year-old Spaniard finished ahead of world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, whose estimated $59 million placed him second, in a list published as the grass-court Grand Slam reaches its closing stages without either man’s fiercest rival in the draw. Alcaraz withdrew before the tournament with the wrist problem he first sustained in April, an absence that has shaped the entire 2026 season.
That Alcaraz led the field at all is the headline curiosity. Sidelined since the spring, he played none of the season’s clay or grass majors, yet his commercial value proved almost entirely injury-proof: roughly $44 million of his total came from endorsements, appearance fees and licensing rather than prize money. His portfolio is anchored by a long-standing Nike deal and was bolstered in May by a new partnership with the Singapore-based fintech group Ant International.
Sinner, who defends his Wimbledon title this week, has narrowed the commercial gap on Alcaraz as their rivalry has come to define men’s tennis. But the more striking story sits beneath the top two, where women occupy six of the ten places — a balance no other major individual or team sport comes close to matching. Tennis remains the rare global sport in which the leading women earn on roughly the same scale as the men, helped by equal prize money at all four majors since 2007.
Coco Gauff leads that group. The American, the highest-ranked woman on the list, earned an estimated $40.3 million, the bulk of it off the court through a deep roster of partners including New Balance, Rolex, Bose, Fanatics and Miu Miu. Her appeal has continued to widen since she won her second Grand Slam title at the 2025 French Open, and she is among the last four standing at Wimbledon this fortnight.
Just behind her, in fourth overall, is a name that underlines how far a brand can outlast a career. Serena Williams, who returned to competition this summer after nearly four years away, earned an estimated $40 million — more than she banked in any single year as a full-time player. Almost none of it came from the court: she took home a little under $9,000 in prize money from her two grass-court doubles appearances this year. The rest flows from more than ten brand deals — among them Lincoln, Heineken, Nike and Barbie — an Instagram following of 18 million, seven-figure speaking fees and her venture-capital firm, Serena Ventures.
Williams’ comeback, and the attention it drew back to the sport, is cited as one reason the top 10’s combined earnings jumped sharply. Together the ten highest-paid players took home an estimated $344 million over the year, up more than a quarter on the previous 12 months, as sponsors competed harder than ever to attach themselves to the sport’s biggest names.
The list also captures how commercial power can outrun ranking. Qinwen Zheng came in seventh at an estimated $24.6 million despite slipping outside the world’s top 100 amid injury, her earning power sustained by the sponsorship windfall that followed her Olympic singles gold in Paris in 2024. Beyond the top 10, seven women earned at least $10 million from off-court sources alone, including Naomi Osaka and the young Filipino talent Alex Eala.
For the men, the figures reflect a generational handover already well under way. Alcaraz and Sinner now rank fifth and sixth on the all-time ATP prize-money list at just 23 and 24, with French Open champion Alexander Zverev — into the Wimbledon semi-finals this week — having edged narrowly ahead of both at Roland Garros. All three sit at around $65 million in career prize money, a marker of how quickly today’s leading players accumulate wealth as purses at the majors and Masters 1000 events continue to climb.
Whether Alcaraz can convert commercial dominance back into silverware remains the open question. His focus now turns to the US hard-court swing and the defence of his US Open title in August — his first chance since the spring to remind sponsors, and rivals alike, what they have been missing.
