New York (AFP)
22-year-old Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, winner of two Grand Slam tournaments, became the highest-paid sportswoman in history in 2019 with $ 37.4 million (34.3 million euros) in revenue , dethroning Serena Williams, Forbes magazine said on Friday.
The two athletes break the record for Russia's Maria Sharapova, five-time Grand Slam winner who retired in February and pocketed $ 29.7 million in 2015.
"For people outside the tennis world, Osaka is a fairly new face with a great story," said David Carter, professor of sports business at the University of South Carolina, for Forbes.
"In addition to that, she is young and has a double culture (her father was born in Haiti and her mother is Japanese), attributes which allow a greater number of young people to identify with her. The result is "emergence of a global icon of sports marketing," said David Carter.
Osaka is in 29th place in the ranking of the 100 best paid athletes established by Forbes, four places ahead of the American Serena Williams and her 23 Grand Slam titles, the highest paid female athlete in the last four years.
The magazine also said that the list, which should be published entirely next week, had not counted two women since 2016.
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