Which tennis player has won the most money while also NEVER winning any events or tournaments or Olympic medals?
Endorsement and appearance fees don’t count and neither do promotional stuff like calendars.
Anna Kournikova is who comes to mind first, though I imagine that there is a better answer, and a lot of her fame (and probably her money, too) came from her looks and endorsements.
That said, she does fit the OP’s question: she apparently never won a singles title, but was ranked as high as #8 in the world in singles. However, she was substantially more successful in doubles, and won several Grand Slam titles as a pair with Martina Hingis. Also, she had a fairly short career, retiring at age 21.
I figured someone would mention her, but she doesn’t fit the question as she won several doubles events. The player I am looking for has never won ANY events or tournaments, be it singles/doubles or mixed doubles.
It’s hard to say - how do you not win “any” events? Is this limited to majors? Otherwise, you would think that pretty much everybody that anybody has heard of has one at least one professional tournament.
The two names that pop into my head are Carling Bassett and Hu Na, although I don’t know how successful the latter was - she became newsworthy briefly for what may or may not have been a fake asylum attempt near San Francisco in the 1980s during a Federation Cup tournament (back when the entire thing was held over a week at a single location, and it was two singles and one doubles match per tie).
Zero tournaments won is pretty strict.
Todd Martin won $8 million and did not win a doubles or single grand slam.
He did not win a single Masters Series titles either. He did win 8 titles, though.
He’d be my pick on the male side.
Adrian Mannarino has won 0 singles and 0 doubles titles on the ATP world tour, and $5,079,948 in prizemoney.
He is active and currently ranked 24 in the world.
Is it really that strict? You can come in 2nd and still win a fair amount of money.
And let me make this clear, to qualify the player can’t win ANY tournaments or titles, no singles, no doubles, no mixed doubles. None. So Martin is out.
It really is strict (if straightforward), as evidenced by the fact that posters are having a difficult time finding a player who meets the criteria.
Jerry Janowicz has earned $3 million and has not won a tournament. He was in a team competition that won something, but that isn’t singles or doubles and is a team thing.
He has zero singles or doubles titles.
Sorry about that. I just thought it along with the same question in golf were interesting questions, because you can make some good money on the PGA tour if you come in 2nd place, enough to make a moderately comfortable living.
Think about it this way: if you’re good enough to finish in the money (especially to finish in the top 10) on at least a semi-regular basis, you are, in fact, a good enough player to actually win tournaments. The best-ranked player doesn’t win every single week – even a dominant player, like a Tiger Woods or Serena Williams in their primes, has off weeks. Plus, any player can get in a groove, and have that “best week of their career” – or just get lucky and have a good week of playing, when each of their opponents had bad weeks.
Secondly, in tennis and golf, you have a handful of major / prestigious tournaments, spaced out through the season, and other, smaller tournaments running pretty much every week for the remainder of the season. It’s pretty unusual for the top players to play in every single tournament; they tend to build their schedules around the majors, and prep for those. This means that, in the smaller tournaments, there’s more of an opening for players in the next tier to win one.
While I’m not an expert in tennis, I know that there are a number of other golf tours (major professional tours in several different geographic areas, developmental / “minor league” tours, the Senior tours, etc.) Your question is broad enough that it seems to exclude anyone who’s won a tournament in one of those, as well.
Finally, there are undoubtedly some “one hit wonders” who played out of their minds for one magical week, and won one tournament (or came ever-so-close), but they may well not have made a bunch of money over their careers.
So, really, what your question is looking for is a player who was good enough to consistently finish in the money, but never lucky enough to actually win a tournament (and I say “lucky” because, to finish in the money consistently, you do need to be good enough to actually win a tournament). And, for the reasons I describe, the odds of that seem to be rather small.
The problem is that your OP said (in both the golf and tennis) that DQed who won any tournament or event.
Nearly any tennis player (or golfer) of ATP, WTA or PGA caliber has won a junior, amateur, college, or a mini tour event
Hell I have won tournaments in both tennis and golf. I probably rank about 1000000th in tennis rankings and 100000th in golf.
Wow, nitpick much? Seems to me that it was clear from my OP that I was talking about professional PGA/LPGA/Senior/etc events, that actually pay money rather than some amateur garbage that wins you a ribbon or trophy and nothing else.
Good Username / Post
You are the one that urged the reader to read the OP for full info. I thought you might clarify your query. Silly me.
And then in a subsequent post.
hmmm. “Can’t win ANY Tournaments.”
Again, Silly me. What was I thinking?