Back in 1970, Billie Jean King won the Italian Open and was awarded $600, while Ilie Nastase won the men’s tournament and collected prize money of $3,500. King has frequently cited that as breakaway moment for the women’s tour. Within months, she and eight other players, who became known as the Original 9, signed $1 contracts to play in the Virginia Slims circuit organized by Gladys Heldman. The move broke with the sport’s establishment, and it eventually produced the WTA, with King as its first president.

The first payoff came in 1971. That October, King won the Virginia Slims Thunderbird Classic in Phoenix and passed $100,000 in earnings for the season, the first woman athlete to do so and roughly ten times the average American income at the time. 55 years later, she celebrated the occasion with the statement that the number was never really the point. 

“55 years ago today, I won $4,000 at a tournament and became the first woman athlete to earn $100,000 in prize money in a single year,” she wrote on X. “At the time, $100,000 felt like a milestone. But it was about so much more than the money. It was about proving what was possible, and opening doors for the generations to follow.”

“Today, professional tennis players represent 10 of the 20 highest-paid women athletes,” Jean added. “Progress doesn’t happen by itself. We have to keep pushing, keep breaking barriers, and keep opening doors.”

King’s biggest success came off the court in 1973. After receiving $15,000 less than Nastase for winning the 1972 US Open, she threatened a boycott of the tournament, which then became the first Grand Slam to offer equal prize money. The others followed slowly, with the Australian Open matching it in 2001, the French Open in 2006 and Wimbledon in 2007, the last of the four. 

The next frontier has been the combined WTA and ATP 1000 events, and the WTA confirmed last Thursday that the job will be finished in 2027. The Italian Open, Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open will all move to equal prize money, joining Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and the China Open, which already pay men and women the same. 

The WTA’s announcement fulfills the promise they made in 2023 to establish equal prize money for men and women across all elite tournaments. The next step is getting all the single-week WTA 500 and 1000s and standalone tournaments by 2033. The tour has even created a Tournament Investment Fund which helps events to sustain the demands of equal pay.

WTA players topping the charts

The earnings of today’s generation are a testament to the impact that foundation has made. Coco Gauff was the highest-paid female athlete in 2024 and 2025, with a total estimated value of $34.4 million and $33 million, respectively, and is only the third female athlete, after Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, to cross the $30 million threshold in a single year. 

Aryna Sabalenka followed her in 2025 with $30 million, and Iga Swiatek with $25.1 million, with three tennis players taking the top three spots. Further down the list, tennis players accounted for half of the top 20 on Forbes’ ranking. 

However, it does not stop there, as King’s warning suggested. No woman has appeared on Forbes’ list of the 50 highest-paid athletes overall since 2023, and the lowest-paid athlete was $53.6 million, which is $20 million more than Gauff’s total. The journey for women’s tennis has been remarkable, but the distance is still to cover.