What is Gabriela Sabatini's Net Worth?
Gabriela Sabatini is a retired Argentinian professional tennis player who has a net worth of $8 million. Born in 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Gabriela Sabatini picked up tennis when she was six years old and won a tournament within two years. By the time she was 13, Sabatini was the youngest tennis player ever to win Miami's Orange Bowl. She went on to claim six international titles as a junior and was considered the top junior player in the world in 1984. A year later, she burst onto the scene and became one of the youngest women ever to reach the French Open semifinals. In 1988, she faced off against Steffi Graf in the U.S. Open finals, losing in three sets. She took silver in the Summer Olympics that year and again lost to Graff, this time in straight sets. She and Graf joined forces and claimed the doubles championship at Wimbledon. Sabatini finally got her revenge on Graff in the U.S. Open finals in 1990, winning 6-2, 7-6, giving her the only Grand Slam title of her career. In 1994, she claimed the Year-End Championship title. In the late '80s, she attempted to capitalize on her tennis fame by releasing her own fragrance line. Sabatini retired from tennis in 1996 and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame a decade later. She finished with a 632-189 record, 27 titles, and a peak world ranking of three.
Career Earnings
During her career, Gabriela Sabatini earned $8.78 million in tournament winnings. That's the equivalent of roughly twice that amount in today's dollars after adjusting for inflation. She earned millions more from endorsements.
Early Life
Sabatini was born on May 16, 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her parents are Osvaldo and Beatriz Garofalo Sabatini and she has an older brother, also named Osvaldo. Sabatini began playing tennis at the age of six, winning her first tournament at the age of eight. In 1983, she became the youngest player ever to win the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, at the age of 13. The following year, she won the girls' singles title at the 1984 French Open and won the US Open girls' double title alongside Argentinian Mercedes Paz. By the end of that year, she was ranked number 1 in the junior rankings and was named the 1984 Junio World Champion by the International Tennis Federation.
During her early career, Sabatini battled with intense shyness and disliked media attention. She explained that she sometimes would intentionally lose matches in order to avoid having to do on-court interviews.
Career
Sabatini's career and popularity skyrocketed over the next few years. In 1985, she became one of the youngest-ever players to reach the semifinals of the French Open, though she ultimately lost to Chris Evert. She also won her first WTA Tour singles title that year in Tokyo. In September, she entered the world's top ten rankings, coming in at number 10, and received the WTA Newcomer of the Year award.
The following year, in 1986, she won her second WTA title in Buenos Aires and also made it to Wimbledon, though she lost in the semifinals. From 1986 onward, Sabatini remained in the top ten WTA rankings until finally falling out in May of 1996. In 1987, Sabatini reached the semifinals of the French Open and also reached the final of the WTA Tour Championships, though she lost to Steffi Graf both times. That year, she won three WTA titles. In early 1988, she entered the top five rankings and would remain there in 1993. She reached her first Grand Slam singles final at the US Open, though again she lost to Graf. During the 1988 Summer Olympics, she represented Argentina and went on to win the silver medal in the women's singles competition.
While Sabatini often lost to Graf, the two teamed up to win the women's doubles title at Wimbledon in 1988. By the end of 1988, Sabatini won her first WTA Tour Championships without ever dropping a set. The following year, in 1989, Sabatini reached seven tournament finals, winning four of them. In doing so, she defeated both the number two and number one ranked players, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf, respectively. She became only the fifth player in Open Era history to defeat both the number one and two-ranked players in the same tournament.
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In 1990, Sabatini sprained her ankle during the Australian Open. She was sidelined for six weeks but returned to the tour in mid-March to win the Virginia Slims of Florida without losing a set. She lost in the semi-finals of Wimbledon but did progress to her second Grand Slam final, where she defeated Graf in straight sets. She also later beat Graf in the semifinals of the WTA Championships in Madison Square Garden, though ultimately, she lost to Monica Seles in five sets. The match was the first five-set match to be played on the women's tour since 1901.
Sabatini remained dominant in 1991, defeating top-ranked players almost to attain the world number one ranking, though she was narrowly denied by Graf and then Monica Seles. All three players' rankings were within only a few points of each other for most of the year. She ended the year by winning the WTA Most Improved Player of the Year. In 1992, she reached eight finals and won five. In 1993, she reached the semifinals or finals in many of the major tournaments but did not have many wins. However, in 1994, she captured the WTA Championship in New York. She won the Sydney International in 1995 and defeated Graf in the semifinal of the US Open. Sabatini had 11 wins over Graf over the course of her career, more wins than any other player.
In 1996, the tides turned when Sabatini pulled a stomach muscle and had to miss several months of the season. In October of that year, she announced her retirement from the sport. She was given the WTA Diamond Aces Award, acknowledging all the work she had done to promote tennis on and off the court.
Over the course of her career, Sabatini spent 508 consecutive weeks within the world's top 10 ranking, the fourth longest top-10 streak in WTA-tour history.
Personal Life
Sabatini became an Italian citizen through her paternal great-grandfather in 1993. She splits her time between Buenos Aires, Boca Raton, and Pfaffikon, Switzerland. She has devoted much of her time after tennis to charitable work. In 2017, she was awarded the International Club's Jean Borotra Sportsmanship Award in recognition of the sportsmanship she displayed over her career in tennis as well as her charitable projects post-retirement. The ITF presented Sabatini with the Phillippe Chatrier Award, their highest accolade, in 2019 to recognize her work with UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Special Olympics. Sabatini does not have any children and has never married.
