Novak Djokovic faces a historic opportunity at the ATP Finals that are being disputed in Turin, Italy. The Serbian, current number seven in the world and qualified for the semifinals of the tournament undefeated, he is the only player in the running to win the biggest prize in tennis history.
The ATP, in October, announced the prize money of the contest from the money received for being a substitute player to the one that the champion will obtain. Going clean, just for participating in all three round robin matches, Djokovic pocketed $320,000. In addition, for winning all three matches he earned a total of $1,149,900, which is equivalent to $383,300 for each match won.
So far, then, Novak has pocketed $1,469,900 for finishing undefeated in the Red Group of the 2022 ATP Finals. which he shared with Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev. Already classified to the semis, if he won them, he would get $1,070,000 and if he wins, another $2,200,400 would be added. In this way, if he is consecrated as a winner, the bag obtained by Djokovic in this tournament would amount to $4,740,300 dollars.
To date, the record for the highest prize money Won in tennis history is Australian Ashleigh Barty, who won a total of $4,420,000 at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen 2019 after defeating Elina Svitolina in the final. It should be noted that in that contest, the winner of three Grand Slam tournaments did not emerge as an undefeated champion, since she lost in the round robin at the hands of Kiki Bertens.
To draw a parallel between what Djokovic will take and what other tennis players have taken throughout history, for example in 1970 (first “Masters” contest called Pepsi Masters in Tokyo) Stan Smith earned a total of $15,000 dollars . Ten years later, in 1980, Björn Borg pocketed $400,000 for winning while in 1990 André Agassi earned $2,020,000. Most recently, for example, Stefanos Tsitsipas won $2,656,000 after lifting the trophy at London 2019.
