Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova most marketable sportswomen

WTA's No 1 & No 2 are the only ladies to feature in London School of Marketing's list of Top 20 most marketable athletes; MS Dhoni sole Indian in it

As per a recent research conducted by the prestigious London School of Marketing, only two female sports stars have made it to the list of the world's 20 most marketable athletes.


Maria Sharapova recently posted this picture of herself holidaying in Montenegro on her Facebook account 

The two are tennis players World No 1 Serena Williams of USA and World No 2 Maria Sharapova of Russia. The researchers rated the sports icons on the basis of their overall sponsorship and commercial deals.

Twenty-eight-year-old Sharapova is the highest ranked woman by far as she is No 12 in the list. Thirty-three-year-old Serena, meanwhile, is last on the list, at No 20. Interestingly, there is only one Indian on the list, and that is ODI and Twenty20 captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.


Serena Williams. Pic/AFP 

World No 1 golfer Rory McIlroy — at No 6, and Great Britain's leading tennis ace Andy Murray — No 16, are the only two Britons on the list, even as researchers choose to exclude former England football captain David Beckham as he has retired from professional sport.

Swiss tennis master Roger Federer may have lost his World No 1 ranking to Novak Djokovic long ago, but holds an edge over the Serbian in this list nevertheless.

Federer, who lost to Djokovic in the Wimbledon men's singles final recently, is ranked as the world's most marketable sports star — No 1, while Djokovic is a faraway seventh.

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