Coco Gauff defeated Zheng Qinwen 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 on Saturday in the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The 20-year-old American earned $4.805 million in prize money for the title. It is the biggest payout ever for a women’s tennis event, topping the $4.42 million Ashleigh Barty earned during the 2019 WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China. Zheng won $2.305 million as runner-up.
Gauff was down 5-3 in the third set but stormed back to win the third-set tiebreaker. It is her third tournament win of the year and pushes her 2024 prize money to $9.35 million. China’s Zheng was attempting to be the first Asian player to win the WTA Finals.
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“It’s my first time here in Saudi Arabia, and I’ve had a great time,” Gauff said in her post-match interview. “Much more fun than I thought it was going to be.”
The winning payout is higher than all but three WTA players had earned this year entering the Saudi event. The 22-year-old Zheng had made $2.75 million in career prize money before the start of 2024 but has shot up the rankings and captured the gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
Gauff was the world’s highest-paid female athlete last year with $22.7 million from prize money, appearance fees and endorsements. Gauff added a pair of new endorsement deals this year with L’Oreal to pitch its natural hair care brand Carol’s Daughter and juice brand Naked, where she was named CSO, chief smoothie officer. She rolled into Saturday’s final after a straight-set win over world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals and a straight-set victory in the group stage over Iga Swiatek, who has been No. 1 most of the past three years.
Zheng is a rising marketing star, who has the opportunity to build a lucrative endorsement portfolio with continued success. Zheng says she looks up to Li Na, who was the first Chinese woman to win a Grand Slam singles title, which pushed her annual earnings to $20 million. Li and Zheng are both represented by IMG.
China’s leading sports broadcaster, CCTV-5, reached a deal with the WTA just before the start of the finals that enabled tennis fans in China to watch the event. A record-breaking 116 million Chinese viewers watched Li win the 2011 French Open, according to the World Tennis Association.
The WTA Finals is the richest event in the sport but struggles for attention during a time when the NFL and college football dominate the airwaves. The Finals was relegated to the Tennis Channel, while ESPN networks were wall-to-wall college football on Saturday.
The 2024 WTA Finals had only a few hundred fans in the arena early in the event, but the crowds grew during the week, and the Gauff-Zheng match sold out the 5,000-seat King Saud University Indoor Arena. This was not a new phenomenon, as the 2022 WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, and 2023 event in Cancun, Mexico, also struggled with attendance.
The WTA Finals attracts the top eight singles players and doubles teams. The Tour had been close to a deal last year to hold the event in Saudi Arabia but bowed to public pressure not to hold the tournament in a country that has a history of repressive laws against women.
A year later, money trumped any concerns. In April, the Saudi Tennis Federation committed to record prize money of $15.25 million, a $6.25 million increase over last year in Cancun. It matches the payout for the men’s ATP Finals in Turin, Italy. The WTA says the prize money is guaranteed to increase in 2025 and 2026.
“Bringing the WTA Finals to Riyadh is an exciting new opportunity for us and a positive step for the long-term growth of women’s tennis as a global and inclusive sport,” Steve Simon, WTA Tour CEO, said in a statement announcing the location of the WTA Finals. “We’ve been impressed by the commitment shown by the Saudi Tennis Federation to grow the sport at all levels.”
In May, the WTA Tour signed a sponsorship agreement with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, that makes the $925 billion fund the first naming partner of the WTA Rankings.
Saudi Arabia has moved aggressively into tennis. Last November, it hosted the country’s first official pro tournament with the Next Gen ATP Finals in Jeddah. Last month, Saudi Arabia held an exhibition event, Six Kings Slam, with a half-dozen top men’s players. It guaranteed each player at least $1.5 million with a $6 million prize for the winner.
Jannik Sinner captured the big check, nearly twice the size of the one for his 2024 U.S. Open title, but the Italian world No. 1 said, “I don’t play for money.” Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz was more candid. “Most of the time I don’t think about the money,” Alcaraz told reporters at the event. “But you have to be realistic. You have to think that you want to earn money, you know, and that’s it.”
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