In many ways, the history of tennis is the history of wealth. Birthed in the royal courts of Europe, its culture of exclusion has been replaced by a far more public, but equally limiting, quasi-meritocratic spectacle of athletic competition. In 2025, the average US Open ticket was $529, according to SeatGeek. That’s an 18% increase over 2024 for the privilege of watching two Rolex ambassadors volley.
In 2025, $17 million was generated from the official signature cocktail of the US Open, the Honey Deuce, a melon-garnished and Grey Goose-based status beverage that costs $23 (you can keep the cup). That’s $7 million more than the combined winner payout for both singles champions.
However affluent the allure of tennis is, only a small percentage of players can truly reap its benefits. Even after progress spurred by the likes of Billie Jean King and Venus Williams to make tennis the first sport to pay women equally and produce a majority of the world’s highest-paid female athletes, the gap is still daunting.
And now, the ongoing anti-trust lawsuit from the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) only shows how pay discrepancy is much larger than a gendered issue. There is also a massive delta between the top of the pro chain and the rest of the competitors. It was found that in 2013, nearly half of the men who competed in pro tournaments that year did not even earn a single $1.
Below, we break down the pro tennis wage gap and what can be done to mitigate it.
Are women paid the same as men in pro tennis?
Yes and no.
Since 2007, female tennis players have been paid the same amount of prize money as men at all four Grand Slams, thanks to Billie Jean King and Venus Williams.
At the 1970 Pacific Southwest Open, women were not paid until the quarterfinals and were given a mere $1,500 winner check compared to the men’s $12,500 purse.
This proved to be the final straw for King.
She and eight other women, collectively known as the “Original Nine,” came together with the help of benefactors to create the Virginia Slims tour, which was succeeded by the Women’s Tennis Association. The 1973 US Open was the first major tennis event with equal prize money for male and female competitors.
In 2006, then three-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams pressured the Wimbledon board for equal pay and wrote an op-ed in The Times of London before the start of the tournament, resulting in equal pay the following year.
“I intend to keep doing everything I can until Billie Jean’s original dream of equality is made real. It’s a shame that the name of the greatest tournament in tennis, an event that should be a positive symbol for the sport, is tarnished,” Venus wrote.
Are women equally paid at non-Grand Slam events though?
Nope!
Women are still heavily underpaid at smaller tour events and receive unequal prize money at the non-Grand Slam events where both men and women compete.
A major reason has to do with media rights. Not just how high or low viewership numbers are, but the amount of money that WTA makes from television rights and ultimately contributes.
The media rights fees are reportedly around one-seventh of the men’s tour. This affects not only how much money the WTA makes off of their primary product of matches themselves, but subsequently what the players earn as well.
How bad is that gap if they are still paid equally at Grand Slams?
Pretty bad, and the margin persists as if the Grand Slams are not providing equal pay at all.
The gap between the top-10 highest-earning men and women was 1.44 in 2007 and by 2023 had only dropped to 1.36. Some of the largest non-major events shamelessly feed into the gap because of commercial differences between WTA and ATP, like the media-rights gap. At the 2023 ASB Classic, Richard Gasquet received nearly $98,000 to Coco Gauff’s earnings of $34,000 for winning the tournament.
And even if you are able to draw record-breaking viewership numbers, such as the great Serena Williams, who participated in five of the top-10 most viewed tennis matches in the United States ever, you still might get $200,000 less than the male winner of the same tournament (as happened at the 2015 Western & Southern Open).
A woman cannot even play or win enough tournaments to shorten the gap either; Iga tried. In 2022, a year in which the ATP’s total prize money was 75% more than the WTA’s, Iga Świątek put together one of the best seasons in recent tennis history: two Grand Slams, a 37-match win streak, only nine losses, and eight titles.
Yet Carlos Alcaraz, who won just one major that year and lost more matches than Świątek, still out-earned her in prize money, taking home $10.1 million to her $9.9 million.
How can female players receive equal pay?
The WTA has promised equal pay at shared WTA 1000 and 500 events by next year and has gone on to promise equal pay at all WTA single-week events 1000s and 500s by 2033.
Although a merger between the ATP and WTA has been discussed for so long that it rivals the wait for Nick Kyrgios to make a sustained return to Grand Slam singles, proponents argue that a unified commercial structure could help accelerate the push toward equal prize money.
Are male players compensated fairly at least?
Not at all.
While the women are being exploited as it is, the men are in a better position, but not really.
Yes, they are making significantly more than their female counterparts but both parties are severely undercompensated compared to other major sports leagues.
While leagues such as the NBA and NHL pay their players around 50% of their revenue, tennis players only receive around 15% of the total revenue at Grand Slam events.
How much money are men making?
In 2022, it was reported that 58 men made over $1 million in prize money. But don’t let this stat fool you at all, this is horrendous.
Carlos Alcaraz, who made $10 million in prize money that year, would be around the 150th highest paid player if he were in the NBA. Yep, the best tennis player in the world is getting outpaid by bench warmers traveling only as far as across the country, in a complimentary team private jet at that.
But regardless of how underpaid the largest talents in the sport are, it comes nowhere near how dismal it is for those at the polar opposite of the tour.
How much is needed to survive and profit on tour?
This varies by player and their respective calendar. Taylor Townsend told Vox, “there are a lot more players that are struggling than the ones that aren’t.”
If an active tour-level player travels 30–35 weeks during the ATP season and spends an average of $500 per flight—a conservative estimate given the amount of last-minute and international travel required—airfare alone could cost roughly $17,500 per year.
That is without taking into account lodging, a coach and/or physio, food, equipment, and other expenses. Even for a relatively frugal player, costs can quickly reach tens of thousands of dollars. Former World No. 24 Sam Groth estimated that maintaining his career on tour cost around $200,000 per year.
How many players are really making a profit?
Now if you are one of those lucky players who are making a million in prize money, then $200,000 may not hurt that much, especially when considering the benefits of being a top player—appearance fees, endorsement deals, all-inclusive travel and board at tournaments.
But, $200,000 is $200,000. And a large majority of players are feeling the squeeze.
While some players may be lucky to receive funds from a benefactor, a reported 80% of players in the top-1000 don’t earn enough to cover the expenses that come with competing in tennis at a high level.
This financial pressure not only leads to stress leaking onto the court, but also forces players to compete when injured to secure a check at big events, take shady deals to throw matches in exchange for money or even sleep in their car en route to playing their frenemy from juniors who is now married to their ex-girlfriend.
How can players secure more money for themselves? Or what can be done?
The PTPA has already filed a lawsuit referring to the pro tennis organizations as a “cartel” and big strides are being made. Tennis Australia has already settled and been dropped from the lawsuit.
Jannik Sinner has joined other top players in pushing the Grand Slams for a greater share of tournament revenue (while Carlos Alcaraz has publicly distanced himself from the PTPA lawsuit). And that pressure is beginning to produce results: the 2026 US Open announced a record $108 million in player compensation, while the four Grand Slams have agreed to establish a player council to give athletes a greater voice in decisions affecting them. Players are still pushing for a formal revenue-sharing agreement.
And while the ATP’s Baseline Program distributed more than $1.3 million to players in its first year and now guarantees eligible Top-250 players a minimum of $100,000 annually, no equivalent program currently exists in the WTA.
In an era where brand deals and off-court presence have never been more potent, the question may no longer be whether top players will use their platforms to demand true compensation, but whether they can turn that leverage into lasting change for everyone else on tour.
