The tennis player, who currently owns 23 Grand Slam titles in her career, has earned $62,000 (£48,050) in competition prizes over the past year, a period of time during which she spent a lot of time away from the soccer world to give birth. However, according to Forbes magazine, Serena Williams has a total income of up to 18 million USD largely thanks to sponsorship and advertising. This 36-year-old tennis player became the top athlete in the women’s poll for 3 consecutive years, a record that no tennis player has ever broken.
Last June, in the list of the 100 highest-paid athletes in the world voted by Forbes, there were no female athletes, after the “little sister” of the Williams family fell off the voting list.
Famous American boxer Floyd Mayweather is the athlete at the top of the list, followed by two world soccer stars Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The total amount of money earned by the 10 highest-paid female athletes in the world is up to 105 million USD (from June 2017 to June 2018). This number has decreased by 4% compared to last year and 28% compared to 5 years ago.
Caroline Wozniacki, the female tennis player who won the Grand Slam title in Australia in early 2018, ranked second in the list of the top 10 highest-paid female athletes in the world voted by Forbes when she won a bonus of up to 3.1 million USD, pushing her total yearly income to 13 million USD. The next positions also include American female tennis player Sloane Stephens, Garbine Muguruza (Spain) and Maria Sharapova of Russia. Previously, Sharapova was the highest-paid female athlete in the world for 11 consecutive years, but after being banned from competition for doping, her position was no longer maintained.
Top 10 female athletes with the highest income voted by Forbes:
1 – Serena Williams (tennis) – $18.1m (£14m)
2 – Caroline Wozniacki (tennis) – $13m (£10.1m)
3 – Sloane Stephens (tennis) – $11.2m (£8.7m)
4 – Garbine Muguruza (tennis) – $11m (£8.5m)
5 – Maria Sharapova (tennis) – $10.5m (£8.1m)
6 – Venus Williams (tennis) – $10.2m (£7.9m)
7 – PV Sindhu (badminton) – $8.5m (£6.6m)
8 – Simona Halep (tennis) – $7.7m (£6m)
9 – Danica Patrick (racing) – $7.5m (£5.8m)
10 – Angelique Kerber (tennis) – $7m (£5.4m)
