In August 2013, Victoria Azarenka was named the fourth highest paid female athlete in the world by Forbes Magazine, with total earnings of $15.7 million between 2012–2013. Her prize money constituted $6.7 million while her growing endorsements equaled $9 million. Azarenka’s $7.9 million prize money haul in 2012 was a single year record for a female athlete in any sport.
Will she earn more prize Money at Wimbledon?
John McEnroe, along with Chris Evert did a conference call for the media this week, previewing ESPN’s coverage of the entire Wimbledon tournament. Play begins in London Monday, and runs for a fortnight- ending July 6th.
McENROE: Is Azarenka still in?
EVERT: Yeah, she’s come back. This is her first week.
McENROE: She hasn’t played much for a while, so that would be an X factor for her. She got hurt last year. She’ll be hesitant early on. Obviously, when she got hurt, she was 2, 3 in the world.
Evert picked Serena Williams to win her sixth Wimbledon, while McEnroe did the same. Azarenka has never won tennis’ most prestigious event, but she did reach the semis in ’11 and ’12. She also won the Australian Open in 2012 and 2013. So well, most of my readers here, know her as the tennis player dating Redfoo from LMFAO (and how unfortunate that is, to have to spend any time with that man. No one should be subjected to such torture) there’s a lot more to her than just that.
Victoria Azarenka is a lot more than just bikini pictures and risque photos too. She has been ranked #1 in the world (January 2012), and she’s currently ranked #8.
However, she probably won’t overtake Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams at Wimbledon.
During the conference call I asked John McEnroe about the Wimbledon chances of Daniela Hantuchova, as well as the chances of Caroline Wozniacki and Ana Ivanovic. Click their names where highlighted to see what he had to say about their prospects of winning.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on talk shows across the world. Banks has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, Washington Times, NBC and The History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)