The athletes’ earnings list for the year 2022 is out. There were some common faces as always dominating the charts. Lionel Messi and LeBron James were among the highest-earning men while Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka topped the charts for women. A common pattern was seen like every other year where soccer and NBA icons dominated the men’s charts while the women’s list featured all the tennis stars.

Focusing on tennis, six of the eight highest-earning women are from the WTA tour. However, there was something really peculiar about the biggest earners. The three highest-earning women had a very little proportion of their income arriving from prize money.

Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, and Emma Raducanu’s income reveals the sad reality of tennis

The three highest-paid WTA tennis players of 2022 amassed close to $110 million in the year 2022. Naomi Osaka ($49m), Serena Williams ($41m), and Emma Raducanu ($19m) represented tennis as the highest earners of 2022. However, this list only goes on to show the little impact of prize money on the sport.

Osaka, Williams, and Raducanu played very little tennis in 2022 and all three of them failed to win a single title. They still managed to become the highest earners of the sport owing to their sponsorships and off-court deals. A graphic also revealed that 98% of Osaka’s earnings for 2022 came off the court.

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On the other hand, Iga Swiatek, the world number 1 who won multiple slams and big titles in 2022, could only amass $15 million. This goes on to signify that maybe the prize money in tennis is not sufficient enough!

READ MORE: ‘Women Have Been Putting in the Work’- Naomi Osaka Shuts Down a Journalist on Equal Pay at Miami Open 2022

Women are still underpaid in tennis

Tennis is seen as one of the few sports where the income inequalities between men and women are minimal. However, this turns out to be a myth. While the Grand Slams and a few big events like Indian Wells have equal pay for both men and women, the other tournaments fail to replicate the same.

Even certain big WTA 1000 events fail to acknowledge women athletes the same way they do for men. Recently, Candian Open announced that they would distribute close to 10 million dollars in prize money this year. However, only a sum of $2,788,468 is reserved for women while the men’s section would receive a whopping $6.6 million.

The Italian Open is another example of a big event undermining the WTA tour. Considered to be one of the biggest non-slam events, they have shown significant bias towards paying larger sums of money to the men. A flow chart revealed earlier this year the large earning disparity between the tours in Rome.

Certain WTA stars including Jessica Pegula and Iga Swiatek have called out the tennis community for equal pay. However, the community hasn’t shown any significant effort in making amends. In Big 2023, women continue to face disparity as they are severely underpaid.

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