Forbes tapped the most powerful women in sports this week, ranking the Top 25 players, executives, and others pushing the needle in the ever-growing sports — and women's sports — sector.
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark is the highest-ranked athlete at No. 4, joined by Unrivaled co-founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart at No. 9, as well as tennis stars Serena Williams (No. 11) and Coco Gauff (No. 13), reigning WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson at No. 15, gymnastics titan Simone Biles at No. 18, and world No. 2 golfer Nelly Korda at No. 21.
Also making the 2025 Forbes Most Powerful Women in Sports roster are tennis legend Billie Jean King (No. 23), NCAA basketball coaching icon Dawn Staley (No. 20), and Las Vegas Aces sideline leader Becky Hammon (No. 22).
Women's sports multi-team owner Michele Kang came in at No. 5, with NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman (No. 7), New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai (No. 10), US Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone (No. 14), and more representing the off-field lineup.
According to the publication, the new annual list honors leaders "who are transforming one of the world's most influential industries, shaping strategy, driving innovation, and expanding the role of women across the sports economy."
Investments, influence, and growth drivers were all taken into consideration, with Forbes also dividing selectees into five categories: owners/investors, business executives, front office leaders, athletes, and amplifiers.
Professional women's volleyball is officially landing in Los Angeles, with LOVB announcing Wednesday that the league plans to launch an LA expansion team funded by Angel City investor — and Serena Williams's husband — Alexis Ohanian.
Ohanian's Seven Seven Six venture capital firm is behind the new club, adding to a portfolio that also includes track and field competition Athlos and NWSL-focused docuseries The Offseason, as well as the men's Los Angeles Golf Club.
"We're excited to make LOVB the third jewel in Seven Seven Six's LA sports family," Ohanian said in the league's expansion announcement. "Volleyball is such a natural addition for Southern California, which has already proven how warmly it embraces new pro sports teams."
LOVB wrapped its inaugural six-team season in April 2025, with the league's second season set to kick off in January 2026 before LOVB LA becomes the pro venture's seventh squad in 2027.
"We're thrilled to partner with Alexis and the Seven Seven Six team, true women's sports champions," said LOVB Pro president Rosie Spaulding, further acknowledging the impact of Ohanian's sports portfolio and investment acumen. "Their commitment strengthens the entire volleyball ecosystem, and marks an exciting new chapter for LOVB and the sport as a whole."
"We can't wait to work with them to bring professional women's volleyball to Southern California as we continue to grow the sport across the US."
Aryna Sabalenka won her first Grand Slam of the 2025 WTA season on Saturday, with the world No. 1 defeating then-No. 9 Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-6(3) to claim the US Open trophy — the final Slam of the year.
"To bring the fight and be able to handle my emotions the way I did in this final, it means a lot," Sabalenka said following the match. "I'm super proud right now of myself."
After successfully defending her 2024 US Open title — and claiming tennis's top 2025 paycheck in the process — Sabalenka is now the tournament's first repeat champion since 2014, when Serena Williams claimed a third straight trophy at the New York Slam.
The 27-year-old narrowly avoided a Slam-less year, going without a trophy despite reaching both the Australian Open and French Open finals as well as the Wimbledon semifinals.
"I think because of the finals earlier this season, this one felt different," Sabalenka said. "All of those lessons are making me tougher, tougher, and tougher."
As for Anisimova, the US rising star added a new career-high WTA ranking alongside her second straight Grand Slam final appearance on her 2025 resume, rising to world No. 4 in Monday's update.
Also earning a noticeable bump on Monday was Japanese star Naomi Osaka, who clocked in at No. 14 after a stellar Grand Slam comeback run to the 2025 US Open semifinals.
The Naomi Osaka comeback tour at the 2025 US Open has ended, as the two-time New York Grand Slam champion and world No. 24 star ceded her Thursday semifinal to No. 9 Amanda Anisimova, who battled back to claim the 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 6-3 victory.
"Naomi is playing amazing tennis," the 23-year-old said of Osaka's US Open run. "She's back where she belongs. I told her I'm so proud of her after having a baby and playing at this level — it's insane."
With her Thursday win, Anisimova is now the only player to ever defeat Osaka in a Grand Slam quarterfinal, semifinal, or final — ending the Japanese fan-favorite's 13-0 run in the later rounds of tennis's major tournaments.
Anisimova's US Open success is even more impressive considering the result of her first-ever Grand Slam final — a brutal 6-0, 6-0 loss at Wimbledon in July.
In a massive turnaround, Anisimova handed No. 2 Iga Świątek, the 2025 Wimbledon champion, a redemptive straight-set loss in Wednesday's US Open quarterfinals en route to reaching this weekend's championship match.
Anisimova's victory means that a US player has now competed in every women's Grand Slam final dating back to the 2024 US Open, extending the country's championship-match streak to five straight Slams.
With even more history on the line, the US rising star now has a second shot at joining No. 6 Madison Keys and No. 3 Coco Gauff in hoisting a 2025 Grand Slam trophy for the US — a feat not accomplished by any single country since Serena Williams won the Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon in 2015.
How to watch the 2025 US Open championship match
Just like Keys and Gauff, Anisimova will have to defeat Aryna Sabalenka to claim her own 2025 Grand Slam trophy — with the hard-hitting US finalist holding a 6-3 all-time record against the world No. 1 player, most recently downing the 2024 US Open champion in this year's Wimbledon semifinals.
Anisimova will battle Sabalenka in for the 2025 US Open crown on Saturday, with live coverage of the championship match beginning at 4 PM ET on ESPN.
Women's tennis got a boost on Wednesday, as the WTA announced it would institute rankings pauses for players who step away from competition to undergo fertility protection treatments like egg or embryo freezing.
Players returning from a procedure can opt to receive a Special Entry Ranking, calculated using their 12-week average ranking starting from eight weeks before taking leave.
Players can use that unique ranking to enter up to three tournaments at the WTA 500, 250, or 125 levels before the governing body will again institute traditional calculations.
The protection extends to any player ranked among the world's top 750 who spends more than 10 weeks out of competition.
These latest rankings protection further secures the careers of tennis pro parents, who first earned special rankings in the 2019 WTA season after Serena Willams and Victoria Azarenka saw their seedings plummet simply from stepping away from competition to give birth.
The move also comes three months after the WTA agreed to grant players paid maternity leave for the very first time.
"I'm incredibly proud of our sport in recognizing the importance of fertility treatments for female athletes," said 2017 US Open champ and longtime reproductive health support advocate Sloane Stephens. "For any woman, the conversation of family life versus a career is nuanced and complex."
"It's truly ground-breaking and will empower this generation, and future generations of players, to continue with the sport they love without having to compromise."
World No. 2 Coco Gauff earned her second career Grand Slam title on Saturday, taking down No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in a windy 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 battle to claim the 2025 French Open trophy.
Having reached the final once before in 2022, the 2025 championship made Gauff the first US player to win the French Open since Serena Williams did so in 2015.
"Losing in the finals here three years ago had created a lot of doubt in my head," the 21-year-old wrote on social media after her Roland Garros victory. "I thought my dreams were so close to happening but would never come true. So to be here…means absolutely everything."
Despite Sabalenka's championship match loss — a performance that saw the 27-year-old commit 70 unforced errors — she will retain the world No. 1 ranking thanks to a generally strong 2025 season so far.
Frustrated with her performance, Sabalenka faced backlash due to her emotional post-match comments on the loss — and, notably, on Gauff's level of play.
She later walked back those words on Sunday, clarifying in an Instagram story that "both things can be true… I didn't play my best, and Coco stepped up and played with poise and purpose. She earned that title."
Gauff, US standout No. 3 Jessica Pegula, and Italy's No. 4 Jasmine Paolini also maintained their WTA positions behind Sabalenka, with French Cinderella story Loïs Boisson skyrocketing 296 spots to No. 65 after her landmark semifinals run.
In contrast, four-time French Open champion Iga Świątek continues to dip, falling from No. 5 to No. 7 after last Thursday's semifinal loss to Sabalenka.
With two of the season's four majors in the books, the US is leading the charge, as Gauff joins reigning Australian Open champion No. 8 Madison Keys as 2025's Grand Slam winners.
Two US tennis stars are still shining at the 2025 French Open, as world No. 8 Madison Keys and No. 2 Coco Gauff blew through their Round of 16 matches on Monday to set up an all-US quarterfinal showdown on Tuesday.
Gauff dealt No. 20 Ekaterina Alexandrova a dominant 6-0, 7-5 loss early Monday morning, while 2025 Australian Open champion Keys ended fellow US player No. 70 Hailey Baptiste's French Open run with a 6-3, 7-5 defeat shortly afterward.
"Coco is so good, and especially on clay," Keys said ahead of her upcoming quarterfinal opponent. "She's an unbelievable player and such a great athlete.... I'm looking forward to it and happy to see there will be another American in the semifinals."
Five US women and three men reached the fourth round at Roland-Garros this past weekend, tying the country's 1985 record before Baptiste joined No. 3 Jessica Pegula and No. 16 Amanda Anisimova on the ousted list.
No US player has won the French Open since Serena Williams in 2015, with both Gauff and Keys shooting for a championship match date against top contenders like No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka or No. 5 Iga Świątek — winner of four of the last five Parisian Grand Slams.
How to watch the 2025 French Open
Gauff and Keys will battle for a spot in semifinals on Tuesday morning.
The quarterfinals kick off at 5 AM ET, with live coverage on TNT.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame announced their Class of 2025 on Tuesday, with this year's iconic cohort headlined by tennis titan Serena Williams and track legend Allyson Felix.
Alongside four-time Olympic gold medalist Williams and seven-time gold medalist Felix — the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history with 11 total medals — four other women and one women's team snagged spots in the 2025 class.
Joining the pair are gymnastics icon Gabby Douglas, a two-time team gold medalist and the first Black woman to take individual all-around gold in Olympic history, and three-time beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings.
Additional inductees include the gold medal-winning 2004 USA women's wheelchair basketball Paralympic team, five-time Paralympic gold medalist in track Marla Runyan — the only US athlete to have competed in both the Paralympic and Olympic Games — and multi-sport specialist Susan Hagel.
Hagel competed in six Paralympic Games across three different sports — archery, track and field, and wheelchair basketball — picking up four gold and two bronze medals along the way.
Barrier-breakers honored as Class of 2025 Legends
Also earning Hall of Fame honors are two trailblazing Black women, named as the Legends of the Class of 2025.
Renowned volleyball player and 1984 silver medalist Flo Hyman — whose work to bolster Title IX as well as her role helping Team USA to their first-ever Olympic medal in women's volleyball were crucial to growing the sport in the US — will be posthumously celebrated.
Honored alongside Hyman will be 1976 Olympic bronze medalist Anita DeFrantz, the first and only Black woman to medal in rowing.
DeFrantz, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) first-ever woman member, is still helping to make Olympic history, casting the deciding vote to elect the IOC's first woman president this past March.
The Class of 2025 is the 18th overall group and first since 2022 to enter the Hall of Fame.
Following their July 12th induction, the US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame will bloom to 210 individual and team members.
On the heels of Unrivaled 3x3 Basketball's successful debut season, TIME honored league founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart as two of the year’s most influential people, with the WNBA superstars earning space on Wednesday's 2025 TIME100 List.
"Unrivaled makes female athletes think about everything differently," retired US soccer legend and Unrivaled investor Alex Morgan wrote in the pair's tribute. "It's not always just take the salary and sign on the dotted line and be happy. Sometimes you can just do it yourself better."
Other big names in women's sports also made the cut, including the most decorated gymnast in history, Simone Biles, and retired tennis superstar Serena Williams.
"She is both deeply human and undeniably superhuman — a combination that makes her impact profound," Biles's former USA teammate Aly Raisman wrote of the seven-time Olympic gold medalist. "She inspires us to believe that we, too, can persevere. That we, too, can shatter limits."
Citing Williams's extensive post-tennis resume, which includes significant investments into women's sports, retired US Olympic track star Allyson Felix sang the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion's praises in the 2025 TIME100 List.
"She continues to show that we, as athletes, are so far from one-dimensional," Felix wrote. "She could take a break from being in the public eye and raise her family. Instead, she continues to pave the way."
Teen tennis star Mirra Andreeva is on a roll, upsetting world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in Sunday's final of the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells and launching five spots to No. 6 in the WTA rankings as a result.
Sabalenka entered Sunday's match having not dropped a single set all tournament, then started the final strong with a 6-2 first-set victory.
The three-time Grand Slam winner's advantage didn't last past the first break, however, as Sabalenka's 17-year-old opponent came back roaring back to finish off the match 6-4, 6-3.
"In the second set, I tried to play a little bit more aggressive," Andreeva said after the match. "I didn’t try to overhit her, because I don’t think anyone can overhit Aryna, because she’s super powerful player."
"I tried to really create something to make her uncomfortable, and point by point, game by game, I managed to do that."
WTA Tour-leading Andreeva still hunting first Slam title
With Sunday's win, Andreeva became the youngest Indian Wells champion since then-17-year-old Serena Williams defeated Steffi Graf to win the tournament in 1999.
Even more, Andreeva did so in dominant fashion, ousting top players like No. 22 Elina Svitolina, No. 8 Elena Rybakina, and even the contest's defending champion, No. 2 Iga Świątek, to advance to the championship match.
By defeating both Sabalenka and five-time major champion Świątek, Andreeva added her name next to Williams' in another line of the tennis history book, becoming the first player under 18-years-old to defeat the world Nos. 1 and 2 at the same WTA tournament since the US legend did so at the 1999 US Open.
Perhaps most impressively, Andreeva now sits atop all other players on tour with a 19-3 record on the season, after adding Sunday's Indian Wells trophy to last month's 2025 Dubai Championships title.
That said, Andreeva's current hot streak isn't just a warning to her opponents on tour — it's a signal that the teen could be on the precipice of lifting her first-ever Grand Slam trophy, as her chances of reaching the sport's apex skyrocket with every top-ranked victory.