Coco Gauff secured the biggest paycheck in women’s tennis history at the 2024 WTA Finals, but it still wasn’t enough to see her finish No. 1 on the year-end prize money list.

The American earned an incredible $4.805 million for won her first WTA Finals title. She defeated Qinwen Zheng in a decisive set tiebreak after one of the best and most grueling matches of the season.

Gauff was speechless after being informed of the prize money. The 20-year-old had not checked before the tournament began and struggled to understand what she would do with that sum.

Even if Gauff had reservations about the WTA Finals held in Saudi Arabia due to the country’s human rights, the country always offers huge sums to the players at its sporting events.

The importance of the prize money is shown by Gauff earning more at the WTA Finals than at all her other 2024 events combined, despite achievements such as winning the China Open and reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open, French Open and Indian Wells Open.

Gauff earned $9,353,847 in prize money throughout 2024. That put her close to the No. 1 player on the list, but the massive paycheck from the WTA Finals wasn’t enough to propel her to the top.

Aryna Sabalenka collected the most prize money in 2024. Belarus also finished as the year-end No. 1 in the WTA rankings after an excellent season, including winning the Australian Open and US Open titles.

Sabalenka was the world’s No. 3 player before the start of the North American hard court season after Wimbledon, but with titles at the Cincinnati Open, US Open and Wuhan Open, she overtook Iga Swiatek.

The three-time Grand Slam champion finished 2024 having earned $9,729,260 in prize money. Had she reached the final of the WTA Finals, she would have passed $10 million, but Gauff beat her in straight sets in the semifinals.

Iga Swiatek is No. 3 on the prize money list with $8,550,693. In an outstanding first half of the season, she won the French Open and four WTA 1000 titles and took a significant lead at No. 1 in the rankings.

But a drop in form afterwards and not playing for almost two months after splitting with her coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, allowed Sabalenka to overtake her.

Jasmine Paolini and Qinwen Zheng are No. 4 and No. 5 on the list, with $5,820,798 and $5,559,555, respectively. Paolini reached two Grand Slam finals and won the Billie Jean King Cup with Italywhile Zheng was a gold medalist at the Paris Olympics.

Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova, Jessica Pegula, Elena Rybakina, Elise Mertens and Emma Navarro are the other players in the top 10. Mertens’ doubles success was a major reason for being ranked No.9.

Danielle Collins, Jelena Ostapenko, Katerina Siniakova, Caroline Dolehide, Paula Badosa and Beatriz Haddad Maia are the other players who earned more than $2 million in prize money.

36 players earned more than $1 million. This includes teenage prodigy Mirra Andreeva, Karolina Muchova, Ons Jabeur, Anna Kalinskaya, Donna Vekic, Leylah Fernandez and Caroline Garcia.