Google News The tennis gender cap is highlighted by Serena Williams and Roger Federer's earnings
by LORENZO CIOTTI | VIEW 5686
The gender cap in tennis can be seen from the difference in earnings between Serena Williams and Roger Federer. A staggering $780 million difference between the Swiss and the US leaves doubts about the current gender salary cap.
Recently, Sportico released a list of the highest paid athletes and Serena Williams is the only woman to make the list. Roger Federer is instead in the top 10, while Serena is at number 38 on the list. The US former legend is 29 positions behind Roger, who is the first tennis player on the list.
Doing a quick math, the difference between the two is a whopping $78,00,00,000. If Grand Slam tournaments offer equal prize money to men and women, the situation is different for the WTA and ATP tours. The New York Times said the top 100 female players earn only 80 cents for every dollar earned by the top 100 male players.
This is a significant gap that highlights the gender pay gap in tennis.
The gender cap in tennis
At the 2015 Western & Southern Open in Ohio, Serena Williams received $495,000 for winning the women's tournament title, while Roger Federer earned $731,000 for winning the men's title.
This means that Federer earned about 48% more money than Williams, even though both players won their respective tournaments. Most of Roger Federer's earnings come from his deal with Uniqlo and other business ventures. Similarly, most of Serena's assets are also calculated from her business ventures, with the exception of traditional investment income.
According to Forbes, Serena has earned an estimated $94.8 million in prize money. That's nearly double what any female athlete has ever done. On the other hand, Federer is said to have earned more than $130 million in prize money.
According to data from Sportico, in a ranking dominated mainly by basketball and golf icons, Federer is in ninth place with a gross of $1.38 billion. Moving down the list, Rafael Nadal is 28th. 10 places below the Spaniard, we have Serena Williams with her $600 million in revenue closely followed by Andre Agassi and Novak Djokovic.