WTA Finals prize money taken away as Andreeva and Svitolina’s winnings emerge

Résumé détaillé

Andreeva has not yet lost a match this week, so she could bank the maximum £2.55m cheque. Svitolina lost one match, so should she win the WTA Finals for the second time in her…

The 2026 WTA season will come to a conclusion on Sunday, as Mirra Andreeva faces Elina Svitolina for the WTA Finals title. They already met in the group stage of the year-end championships earlier this week, where 19-year-old Andreeva thrashed 2018 champion Svitolina 6-4 6-0. And there’s a lot on the line in Sunday’s final. The winner also gets a custom purple Mercedes-AMG SL 55 4MATIC+ car, an extra 500 ranking points on top of what they earned earlier this week, plus up to £2.55million ($3.37million) in prize money.

It’s a huge amount, but the prize pool has drastically reduced for the 2026 edition of the tournament, after the WTA moved its premier event from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to its temporary home of Indian Wells.

Riyadh was meant to be the host city for three years from 2024 to 2026. However, the Saudi Tennis Federation and the WTA mutually agreed to terminate the final year of that contract.

Ongoing conflict and uncertainty in the Middle East are understood to be factors in that decision. The women’s tour has since confirmed that Charlotte will host the WTA Finals from 2027 to 2029.

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But as a one-off this year, the event moved to Indian Wells, which already stages a joint ATP and WTA 1000 event in March. When the WTA Finals was staged in Saudi Arabia, it boasted a record prize pot. Last year, Elena Rybakina banked a staggering £3.958m ($5.235m) as the undefeated champion.

But with that agreement now over, the Saudi Tennis Federation is no longer contributing financially. It means the prize pot has dropped by 35.5 per cent. And according to The Athletic, when the season-ending finale moves to Charlotte, it will be on the WTA to front the prize money themselves, too.

This year, players in the singles field got a £166k ($220k) participation fee. They earned £174k ($230k) for a round-robin win, plus £620k ($820k) for a semi-final win.

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