Novak Djokovic won the Cincinnati Masters in empathic fashion on Sunday, defeating World No.1 Carlos Alcaraz in a final to remember for the ages. The Serbian’s 5-7, 7-6(7), 7-6(4) win ensured that he took home a handsome paycheck, which was nearly $565,000 more than WTA Cincinnati champion, Coco Gauff did.
Gauff was rewarded with $454,500, which is lesser then even what Carlos Alcaraz earned as runner up. Courtesy the humungous ATP prize money, Novak Djokovic repeated his 2018 feat by becoming the first player to win a million dollars in Cincinnati twice. Additionally, the record paycheck has put the World No.2 on course for overtaking the Spaniard’s prize money amount earned in 2023 soon.
How much prize money did Novak Djokovic win at Cincinnati Open?
Novak Djokovic earned $1,019,335 as champion in Western and Southern Open prize money. While this is great for the Serbian’s riches, it has again raised the debate of equality in men’s and women’s prize money. Cincinnati hasn’t yet warmed up to the idea quite oddly. Coco Gauff earning a far lesser amount hardly did justice to the tournament she played, which was hotly contested right till the end with one of her conquests being World No.1 Iga Swiatek in the semi-final.
Even if the prize money history of the tournament is considered, in 2022, Borna Coric of Croatia earned $970,020 for being the men’s singles winner. So Novak Djokovic earned 5.08% more for being champion this year. While in the WTA event, the only positive point is that Gauff got 10.3% more than the 2022 champion, Caroline Garcia, who had taken home $412,000.
These numbers are still way better than compared to 2021, when the United States was still affected largely by the pandemic. Alexander Zverev only managed to win $391,240, while Andrey Rublev won $218,965 only for being the finalist. Daniil Medvedev holds the record for winning the highest prize money at Cincinnati of all-time, bagging a whopping $1,114,225 in 2019. However, Novak Djokovic was the first player to become a millionaire there, a year prior to that in 2018, winning a huge $1,088,450 amount.
When it comes to Masters events in a calendar year, Cincinnati does not give the highest prize money to either men or women. It is the Indian Wells and the Miami Masters tournaments which rule the roost on the ATP Tour. In 2023, the winners of both tournaments in the men’s singles category earned a record $1.26 million each respectively. The Cincinnati Masters and Rogers Cup are tied at the second place with $1,019,335.
But on the WTA Tour, this year so far, it was the Italian Open which provided with the maximum prize money across 1000s events. That amount was worth $568,075. That amount will be surpassed easily as the winner of the China Open this year will get a whopping $1.5 million, which has never been won before even at an ATP Masters 1000 event, let alone a WTA 1000 one.
How much has Djokovic earned in 2023?
With the Cincinnati win, Novak Djokovic’s prize money earnings in 2023 has swelled up to nearly $7.92 million. That amount could have easily crossed the 8 million mark had he played in either Washington or Toronto prior to the event. However, it is widely expected that the figure could go up to 9 million by the end of the US Open as the World No.2 is expected to make it to either the semi-finals or the final.
On the other hand, Carlos Alcaraz did get half of Novak Djokovic’s paycheck in Cincinnati. But because of making it to the Rogers Cup quarterfinals and playing 19 ATP tournaments this year as compared to the Serbian’s 17, Alcaraz is not only still the World No.1 but also ahead in winnings. That number has come up to nearly $8.5 million. Both are players will surely play it out till the Nitto ATP Finals 2023 assuming both remain fit to play, to see who gains the highest paycheck in 2023.
