Sabalenka named WTA Player of the Year for winning two Grand Slams
- 09 Dec 2024
Aryna Sabalenka received the WTA Player of the Year award for the first time on Monday after winning two Grand Slam titles and finishing 2024 at No. 1 in the rankings.
In other results of voting by tennis media, Emma Navarro was honored as Most Improved Player, Paula Badosa was named Comeback Player, Lulu Sun was Newcomer of the Year, and Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini were picked as the Doubles Team of the Year.
Sabalenka, a 26-year-old from Belarus, won the Australian Open in January and the U.S. Open in September, along with two other titles this season, going 56-14 with nearly $10 million in prize money. She overtook Iga Swiatek for the top ranking in October.
Navarro made her debut in the WTA’s top 10 in September after making her deepest Grand Slam run at the U.S. Open, where she eliminated defending champion Coco Gauff in the fourth round before losing to Sabalenka in the semifinals.
The 23-year-old Navarro, who grew up in South Carolina and won the 2021 NCAA singles championship at the University of Virginia, won her first tour title at Hobart, Australia, in January, and moved from No. 32 in the rankings at the start of 2024 to No. 8 at the end.
Badosa sat out the last half of 2023 with a back injury but the 27-year-old Spaniard was back near the top of the sport this year, climbing to No. 12 in the rankings, winning the title in Washington and equaling her best result at a Grand Slam tournament by getting to the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
Sun went from outside the top 200 in the rankings to a career-best No. 39, highlighted by a quarterfinal showing as a qualifier at Wimbledon in July and a runner-up finish at the Monterrey Open in August. Sun, 23, was born in New Zealand, grew up in Switzerland and helped the University of Texas win an NCAA team championship.
Errani and Paolini won a doubles gold medal for Italy at the Paris Olympics and helped their country win the Billie Jean King Cup. They also reached the French Open doubles final together. In singles, Paolini was the runner-up at both the French Open and Wimbledon.
Meanwhile, the 2023 US Open concluded with this marvelous back-to-the-future moment: Billie Jean King presenting Coco Gauff with the $3 million winner’s check.
According to Sportico.com, nine of the world’s 15 top-earning women athletes are members of the Hologic WTA Tour -- including six of the top seven. Gauff, a 20-year-old American, tops the 2024 list, which combines prize money and estimated endorsements, with more than $30 million. Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka are the only two athletes to previously surpass that lofty threshold.
It was a breakout year for professional athletes across all women’s sports; 11 cleared the $10 million mark, compared to six the previous year. The top 15 athletes made a collective $221 million this year, an increase of 27 percent from 2023, according to Sportico’s report.
Gauff took home $9.4 million in winnings, more than half of it coming recently in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where she won the WTA Finals and collected $4.805 million. It was part of another record purse, more than $15 million. Gauff was also enriched by a dozen or so endorsement contracts, including New Balance, UPS, Head, Rolex and Bose.
Agencies
