The first racket of Ukraine, Elina Svitolina, has entered the list of the highest-paid female athletes in the world by Forbes.
The 25-year-old Ukrainain ranks seventh wealthiest female athlete in the world, according to the Aug. 17 Forbes story titled “Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2020: 50 Years After Creation Of Women’s Tour, Tennis Dominates Earnings List.”
Most of the money Svitolina has made over the last year is prize money from tournaments — $5.4 million. Endorsements, including from Nike, Wilson and Hublot, have brought her $1 million more. Her total earnings in the 2019-2020 season have been $6.4 million.
Tennis player Naomi Osaka, meanwhile, took first place on the Forbes list of the highest-paid female athletes. She’s a two-time grand slam winner with dual citizenship: Japanese and Haitian. She has made $37.4 million, with $34 million coming from endorsements.
Women in tennis dominate the earnings list, with Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) stars taking nine out of 10 seats on the Forbes list.
- Naomi Osaka ($37.4 million, 10th best female tennis player in the world)
- Serena Williams ($36 million, 9th )
- Ashleigh Barty ($13.1 million, 1st)
- Simona Halep ($10.9 million, 2nd)
- Bianca Andreescu ($8.9 million, 6th)
- Garbiñe Muguruza ($6.6 million, 16th)
- Elina Svitolina ($6.4 million, 5th)
- Sofia Kenin ($5.8 million, 4th)
- Angelique Kerber ($5.3 million, 21th)
- Football player Alex Morgan ($4.6 million)
In 2019, Svitolina also entered the list of highest-paid female athletes. She ranked ninth, making $6.1 million. Most of the highest-paid female athletes in the 2019 Forbes list were also tennis players — 13 out of 15. Serena Williams was on top of the list, followed by Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber.
Like Svitolina, many of the WTA stars who appeared on the 2019 and 2020 Forbes lists weren’t on the 2018 list (with Serena Williams being the exception).
Svitolina is one of the all-time greatest figures of women’s sports in Ukraine. She reached her career-high ranking when she became the world’s No. 3 female tennis player in September 2017.
Aside from setting many national records in tennis, Svitolina won 14 WTA titles. Her most notable win was at the 2018 WTA Finals, a tournament played annually at the end of the season for the top-ranked professional players.
The Ukrainian tennis star from Odessa also reached the Grand Slam semifinals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2019 consecutively.
