MELBOURNE, Australia — Aryna Sabalenka had fallen just short of winning a third straight Australian Open title, but it hadn’t affected her standing with the adoring Melbourne crowd.
When the two-time champion took the on-court microphone after losing Saturday’s final to Madison Keys, she was greeted with rapturous applause. Fans laughed along as Sabalenka eschewed the tradition of thanking her team, instead joking about her three-set defeat being their fault. It was a typically entertaining speech, delivered immediately after Sabalenka had smashed her racket in frustration before briefly leaving Rod Laver Arena to compose herself.
Sabalenka, 26, has three Grand Slam titles. At the last two majors, she won the U.S. Open and then finished as the losing finalist at Melbourne Park, winning 13 out of 14 matches in the process. She has an engaging, funny personality and a big social media presence, playing an eye-catching brand of ultra-attacking tennis. She is the world No. 1.
These are all the metrics that brands and sponsors look for in a sportsperson, but before the Australian Open, Sabalenka split with sports marketing behemoth IMG to join Evolve — a smaller agency co-founded by four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka — after running down her deal because of dissatisfaction with her representation.
“I was looking to build my brand, wanted a little bit more than IMG was doing for me. I wasn’t happy with the service,” she said in a news conference at the Australian Open last week.
“There was tension between me and some of the people out there.”
Max Eisenbud, IMG’s head of tennis clients, said in a statement to The Athletic: “We mutually parted ways with Sabalenka after a successful four-year partnership and are proud of what we accomplished together.
“She is an amazing champion on-court and we wish her the best as she continues her career.”
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Two sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships within tennis, briefed on Sabalenka’s departure from IMG said Sabalenka grew frustrated with the disconnect between her standing in the sporting world and how potential deals were limited because of her nationality. Belarus is an ally in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and brands have either pulled out of or scaled back deals attached to Russian and Belarusian athletes since the start of the invasion in February 2022.
Just before joining Evolve, Sabalenka filmed her first solo Nike commercial, adding to deals with Wilson, tech wearable Whoop, tequila brand Dobel, luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet and Oakberry, the acai franchise run by her partner, Georgios Frangulis — but she still lags behind her contemporaries in the women’s and men’s games.
According to Forbes, Sabalenka took home $9million (£7.2m) from endorsements in 2024. Sabalenka’s biggest rival on court, the world No. 2 Iga Swiatek, picked up $15m in the same period. World No. 3 Coco Gauff brought in $25m, while the men’s world No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz made $32m. Daniil Medvedev, who is Russian and ranked No. 7 on the men’s tour, made $13m, helped by an infectious personality and a big interest in gaming that has landed him deals with EA Sports and Ubisoft.
“An athlete’s nationality makes a huge difference,” said Tim Crow, the former head of international sports marketing agency Synergy, in a phone interview last week.
“Let’s say you’re looking to sign up an American player. In that instance, you’re tapping into the giant American economy — half all the dollars spent on sport in the world by businesses comes out of the American economy,” Crow said.
“All things being equal, I don’t think Sabalenka has got anything like the backing that she should have given her performances, especially in the last couple of years.”
Aryna Sabalenka is at the peak of women’s tennis. (David Gray / AFP via Getty Images)
Tennis is a sports marketing moneymaker because of its status as one of the biggest truly global individual sports. Fans attach themselves not just to tennis players and their fortunes at tournaments, but to their kits, rackets and personalities off the court. The four majors are the most important shop windows and Grand Slam success is the most direct and lucrative route to sponsorships and endorsements, but the biggest stars in the sport — and the most marketable players — transcend tennis. Gauff created a clothing line for American Eagle; Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner model for Louis Vuitton and Gucci; Osaka lit the Olympic flame at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
“To stand out beyond the tennis world where the real money is, you have to become a global face and persona,” said sports marketing consultant Nigel Currie in a phone interview last week.
In the endorsement world, a player’s nationality is their market. Seven spots lower in the rankings and with zero Grand Slam titles to Sabalenka’s three, Zheng Qinwen cannot match her on-court stardom. But in China, Zheng is already an icon — only more so after winning Olympic gold in Paris in 2024 — and she recently signed a deal to become one of the faces of Christian Dior. Emma Raducanu signed a similar deal with Dior a month after winning the U.S. Open as a qualifier in 2021.
When Kei Nishikori became the first Asian man to reach a Grand Slam final in 2014, he created a slew of endorsements that, half a decade later, were bringing in $31m every year. They included a Kei Jaguar car, Nissin Nishikori noodles and an alcohol-free beer from Asahi. Osaka’s Japanese heritage and place at the intersection of sport and pop culture in America has monumental appeal for sponsors.
A timely illustration of Sabalenka’s position in this dynamic came the day after her defeat to Keys, when Belarus’ long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko was elected for the seventh consecutive time in polls that exiled opponents have described as rigged. A few months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Wimbledon banned Russian and Belarusian players from competing, further reducing their exposure. At the French Open the following year, reporters frequently asked Sabalenka about her stance on the war and her connections with Lukashenko. There are numerous pictures of the two together and Sabalenka skipped two post-match news conferences during the Paris tournament, declaring that she “did not feel safe” during one of her conferences.
When Sabalenka returned to her media duties a few days later, she was asked directly if she supported Lukashenko. “It’s a tough question. I mean, I don’t support war, meaning I don’t support Lukashenko right now,” she said.
In between those two tournaments, Sabalenka won her first major at the 2023 Australian Open, ticking the top box brands look for. She has only grown in stature since, but her renown outside tennis has yet to catch up to her position at the top of the women’s game. Stuart Duguid, Osaka’s co-founder at Evolve, described Sabalenka as “one of the most marketable athletes in the world today,” adding that her commercial portfolio is “largely untapped” in a statement upon her signing. Osaka and Duguid both left IMG to set up the agency.
Like Gauff and Osaka, Sabalenka’s cultural presence is amplified by her use of social media. With its restrictive media rights, fragmented programming and low exposure for WTA tournaments versus their ATP counterparts, tennis’ limited discoverability means that being a Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka or Aryna Sabalenka fan is much easier than being a tennis fan who likes those players. Sabalenka’s use of TikTok, in which she takes part in dance trends with her rivals and her team, has helped to raise her profile off the court.
The social media element is “hugely important,” says Crow. “To modern-day sponsors, particularly newer brands, the amount of social media traction you have, the number of followers you have, all that kind of thing is massively important because it’s where they’re putting most of their marketing dollars.”
Part of the reason for social media’s importance is consistency. One of the things that makes tennis global is its worldwide schedule, which can often see the best players spread across different tournaments, in different countries or even continents, from week to week. The four majors — and ATP and WTA 1,000 tournaments, one rung below a major — are where it all comes together.
They are the places where the rivalries that go above and beyond tennis are made, and the lack of them on the women’s tour in recent times is another factor in Sabalenka’s relative difficulty with securing big endorsements. Sinner has Alcaraz. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic had each other. Sabalenka most obviously has Swiatek, with the duo embroiled in a battle for world No. 1. They have dominated the WTA Tour for the past three years, but they have met just once at a Grand Slam and never in a major final.
They came as close as they ever have Thursday, with Swiatek holding a match point against Keys before eventually losing out in a thrilling match tiebreak.
“In individual sports, classic rivalries are like gold dust,” Currie said.
“Great rivalries tend to attract a wider audience as it’s an entry point for those who are perhaps interested but not passionate about a particular sport. It gives them knowledge about a sport that otherwise they wouldn’t have.”
A former WTA executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships in tennis, said: “Women’s tennis hasn’t had a Grand Slam rivalry really since Steffi Graf and Monica Seles more than 30 years ago and hasn’t had a proper on-court rivalry since Serena Williams vs Justine Henin.”
Williams and Henin faced each other in three of the four majors in 2007 and contested an Australian Open final in 2010 (which Williams won in three sets).
“That’s a long time between drinks,” the executive added. “The lack of rivalries is affecting the visibility of the sport.”
The presence of Swiatek, along with Gauff, Elena Rybakina (if she can return to her form of early 2024) and players with the ability to run hot at a major (such as Keys), are further blockers to Sabalenka’s other route to transcendence: dominating the sport outright. A single player winning everything in their path is just as powerful a way into a sport as a compelling rivalry.
One major can make a difference: Wimbledon. Having missed out in 2022 (banned) and 2024 (shoulder injury), Sabalenka’s best result at the All England Club is a semifinal appearance in 2023.
“It’s a matter of time before she breaks through at Wimbledon and if she wins a few more majors, people will say she’s the standout player. That’s what needs to happen,” Currie said.
If Sabalenka continues to pick up Grand Slam titles, her marketing potential will grow. The response of the Melbourne crowd in defeat shows that she is on the way to achieving the status of her contemporaries. To return to her joking assessment of that loss, whether the endorsements and sponsorships will grow with that status appears to be a question for her team.
(Top photo: David Gray / AFP via Getty Images)
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