US Open was the first Grand Slam that Serena Williams won in her career, in both the singles and doubles events. The American Slam also offers the highest pay outs from amongst all four Majors and so it doesn’t come as a surprise that Williams made a fortune there over the course of her career. Arguably, Williams continues to be the richest women’s player ever from tennis, earning nearly $95 million in prize money across her 24-year career. Over 20% of those earnings came at her home Grand Slam. That is around a massive $21 million.
Serena Williams retired last year from the game, with the US Open 2022 being her final swansong. She desired to bid goodbye in front of her home crowd in New York City and rightly so. Having won 39 Grand Slams in total, 9 of those came in NYC alone. And with the US Open being the highest payer in prize money out of the 4 Grand Slams in a year, a massive chunk of her winnings came from the tournament.
Serena’s humble beginnings
Now that number is huge since it is nearly 1/4th of her career prize money amount. Serena Williams won 6 women’s singles titles in her career at the US Open. While she won 2 women’s doubles titles, with as one would rightly guess, her sister Venus Williams. The other title she won as actually her very first back in 1998, in the mixed doubles competition with Max Mirnyi.
For the 1998 win, she approximately received $50,000 while in the singles round, she could only reach the Round of 32. That fetched her just $30,000, which adds up to $80,000. These were humble beginnings but 12 months later was actually when Serena Williams announced herself to the tennis world.
Williams was rewarded with a whopping $750,000 back in 1999 for winning her first women’s singles title there. The Williams family had a great Grand Slam as Serena also teamed up with Venus to win the 1999 women’s doubles title too, for which Serena individually received $82,500.
Her total earnings at the US Open touched the $1.5 million mark after making it to the 2000 US Open quarterfinals and the 2001 final. But Serena avenged her 2001 loss in a rematch of that final in 2002, which ensured that she bagged a cool $900,000 paycheck.
Between 2003-2007 though, Serena Williams blew cold at the US Open as she had to settle with Round of 16 and quarterfinals appearances. Those only fetched her a total of $396,945. However, her best was yet to come.
Serena Williams won 22.93% of her prize money from US Open
Serena Williams went on to become the first women’s player in history to take home $1.5 million for winning the competition as well as paychecks beyond the figure of $3.5 million twice. In 7 US Open editions, Serena ensured that she took home more than a million dollars in each of them.
After her first million dollars win in 2008, Serena Williams earned another $1.88 million for her 2012 US Open Championship victory. A year before that, for having the best points in the US Open series, she was awarded with a bonus of $500,000 despite losing in the final that anyway fetched her $900,000.
Arguably, Serena Williams’ best years at the US Open were in 2013 and 2014. This is because she created history by winning the women’s singles and women’s doubles titles back-to-back alongside US Open series bonuses worth $1 million each. As a result, in just 2 years, Serena became richer by a never-heard-of figure even in men’s tennis for Grand Slams, an incredible $7.5 million.
But of course, nothing lasts forever, not even invincibility. Serena made it to consecutive women’s singles semifinals in 2015 and 2016 and the finals of the 2018 and 2019 editions respectively. As she was aging and with more competition entering the women’s game, these performances can be deemed impressive at the very least.
Her last top showing at the US Open was her run to the semifinals in 2020, despite the year being known for coronavirus and each United States citizen having to be in lockdown. For that, Serena made $800,000. So between 2015 and 2020, she managed to secure $6.22 million for herself, which was still much bigger an amount than other players on the WTA Tour.
Serena Williams’ final US Open paycheck was in 2022 as she failed to make it past the Round of 32, worth $350,000. So the final count overall of her US Open prize money earnings comes up to on estimate, $21,750,000. That is a remarkable 22.93% of her overall on-court career winnings. It is fair to say that Serena has an all-time, world record in both men’s and women’s tennis to her name.
The Serena Williams net worth figure is in the region of $250-300 million as per multiple media reports. Among the top rich, self-made women globally, Serena was ranked an impressive 90th in 2022.
