Who runs the world? (Black) girls.
According to Forbes, Japanese-Haitian tennis player Naomi Osaka has secured the bag of all bags. Osaka’s earnings have put her at No. 29 on Forbes’s Top 100 highest-paid athletes list. She earned a total of $37.4 million from prize money and endorsements between June 2019 and May 2020, edging out Serena Williams, who sits nicely on the list at No. 33.
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion, has been the highest-paid female athlete for the past four years—earning between $18 million and $29 million. And now with Osaka joining her on the list, it’s the first time since 2016 that two women have even made ranks.
So far, Osaka has won two Grand Slams. Still, there’s no telling how many titles this 22-year-old will claim in her career.
The young tennis star rose to fame after beating Williams at the U.S. Open in 2018 to claim her maiden major before doubling her haul at the Australian Open the following year.
Osaka is currently backed by 15 endorsement partners, ranging from Nissan, Shiseido and Yonex, with almost all of them worth seven figures every year. On top of the wins and endorsements, the tennis star’s new and extremely rare Nike contract—which paid her more than $10 million—doesn’t require her to play matches in full Nike apparel.
Osaka has now broken Maria Sharapova’s record for a female athlete, which was set in 2015 when Sharapova raked in $29.7 million.
