Most prize money won by a tennis player at a single tournament (female)

Most prize money won by a tennis player at a single tournament (female)
WHO
Coco Gauff
WHAT
4,805,000 US dollar(s)
WHERE
Saudi Arabia (Riyadh)
WHEN
09 November 2024

Cori “Coco” Gauff (USA) pocketed $4,805,000 (£3,711,536) – the biggest-ever payday for a champion at a top-level tennis tournament on either the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) or ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) tours – for winning the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 9 November 2024. With record prize money on offer of $15.25 million (£11.77 million) – a substantial increase of 69.44% on the 2023 tournament in Cancún, Mexico – Gauff, 20, boosted her earnings by winning two of her three group-stage matches (each worth $350,000; £270,351), a semi-final against top seed Aryna Sabalenka ($1,270,000; £980,989) and the final against the 2024 Olympic singles champion Zheng Qinwen ($2,500,000; £1,931,080), which, when added to her participation fee of $335,000 (£258,765), brought the Billie Jean King Trophy-winner’s cheque to a stellar $4.805 million.

In 2024, for the first time since 2015, the prize pot at the WTA Finals matched that of the men’s ATP Finals (itself up 1.67% on 2023), which took place in Turin, Italy, on 10–17 November 2024.

Novak Djokovic had been the recipient of the biggest payday in professional tennis before Gauff won the 2024 WTA Finals, taking home $4,740,300 (then £3,987,635) on 20 November 2022 after an undefeated week at the ATP Finals.

Ashleigh Barty was the previous women’s single-tournament leader, having scooped $4.42 million (then £3.41 million) for winning the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China, on 3 November 2019.

World No.3 Gauff downed seventh seed Zheng (who banked a cool $2.305 million, or £1.780 million) 3–6, 6–4, 7–6 in a 2024 final lasting 3 hr 4 min – the longest title-winning tussle at the WTA Finals since match-length stats were first tracked in 2008.

At 20 years 223 days old, Gauff became the youngest singles winner at the WTA Finals since Maria Sharapova in 2004 – the year Gauff was born. Before the 2024 WTA Finals, Gauff had won $4,548,847 (£3,513,675) in prize money in 2024; she more than doubled that amount in Riyadh.