Tennis' Richest Loser Is One Win Away
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina is an amazing tennis player, but there's a very shiny monkey on his back. He can remove it this weekend on a grass court in Spain.
Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we discuss the intersection of sports and money—with some extra humor and opinion. Today we’re talking about a title that’s part gift, part curse.
If you’re a casual tennis fan, you may not know much about Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the current world No. 25 and one-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist. But he takes up a disproportionate amount of brain space among our office’s tennis fans.
That’s because Fokina has yet to win an ATP singles title.
Okay, what’s the big deal? Lots of players have never won titles. Well, despite never winning a title, Fokina has earned $11.7 million in prize money over the course of his career.
He’s played in 148 tournaments. He hasn’t won any of them. And he’s pocketed eight figures in prize money from those events.
The next most prize money from a player who hasn’t won a title is $7.3 million from fellow countryman Jaume Munar—just over 60% of Foki’s haul. There’s only one other player on tour who’s made at least $10 million and hasn’t won multiple titles.
Fokina is, like, really good at tennis. He has a 4-4 career record versus Taylor Fritz (10 titles), a 3-4 record versus Alex de Minaur (11 titles), and a 3-4 record versus Casper Ruud (14 titles and three Grand Slam finals appearances). He just hasn’t been able to get over the hump himself.
It’s hard to win an ATP title, but it’s not THAT hard. More than 20 players have already done it in 2026, and we’re only halfway through the calendar year. Many ATP 250s only require four wins for players who get a first round bye, and draws sometimes contain only one or no top 10 players. Kamil Majchrzak, who has never finished a season ranked in the top 50, just won one at ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
Among active men’s players, Fokina’s $11.7 million in prize money sits between Alexander Bublik and Ugo Humbert. Bublik has nine career singles titles. Humbert has seven!
In Fokina’s defense, he did make four finals in 2025. He just lost all of them. During each one, our office was collectively on what we now call “Fokina Watch.”
We bring all of this to your attention today because Fokina is on the precipice of ending “Fokina Watch” once and for all. With a come from behind win over Fabian Maroszan today, he advanced to the finals of Mallorca, a grass event that contained only one other top 30 player after Frances Tiafoe withdrew. He will play American Ethan Quinn1 in the final, and he’ll likely be a decent favorite. If he can’t win this one, we’re starting to think it might never happen.
Asked after the semifinal match about how he’d approach yet anther chance at a title, Fokina paused, took a breath, and chose his words carefully.
“I’m very excited,” he said. “I will try my best tomorrow.”
His chances look good, but this is far from the closest Fokina has gotten to a championship.
Leading 6-3, 1-6, 5-2 in the 2025 Delray Beach Open final, Fokina ripped a forehand down the line on match point that would have been a championship-clinching winner had it not landed out by less than an inch. He then squandered a second match point before eventually losing 5-7 in the third set to Miomir Kecmanovic.
A few months later, Fokina found himself in a similar spot in the 2025 Mubadala Citi DC Open final against De Minaur, attacking with a forehand up the line on match point. This time, his shot went in, but his opponent hit a no-look defensive lob that just landed on the sideline. De Minaur eventually won the point, one of three match points he saved, and beat Fokina in a third-set tiebreaker.
Prior to the trophy ceremony following the match, De Minaur was seen sitting next to Fokina consoling him after yet another brutal loss. Here’s that heartwarming video, via the Tennis Channel 👇
“I know [Fokina] is probably thinking about trying to win that first title just to get that monkey off his back, but what he’s doing is so much better than winning that title, essentially,” De Minaur told Sportico at the 2025 U.S. Open. “He’s putting up results that are pretty impressive, he’s a top 20 player, he’s a force to be reckoned with … whether he has a title or not doesn’t really change that.”
I’m not sure Fokina would agree, although he didn’t really engage with the topic when I asked him about it last fall. He’s generally soft-spoken in interviews. He’s apparently an animal lover. His fiery personality and roller-coaster of emotions on the court provide a stark contrast.
More than five years after he first cracked the ATP top 50, Fokina’s Sisyphean journey could end on Saturday. If not, he’ll still have $11.7 million reasons to be happy about his career2. Either way, we’ll be watching.
Eben’s 🔥 Take: VAMOS FOKI! I love the idea of tennis having a “richest loser”—the person who has won the most money without having any tournament titles—but I’m ready for it to be someone else.
By the way, every time I talk to someone about Fokina, they ask the same question: ‘Why doesn’t he just enter a really bad tournament and win that?’ And the truth is that he has tried. This Mallorca event is an ATP 250, the lowest tier on the main men’s Tour. It’s his fourth 250 of the calendar year; last year he entered six of them.
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
Quinn is currently ranked 63rd in the world. This will be his first ATP Tour-level final.
The winner in Mallorca will reportedly receive €93,175 ($106,000). Second place takes home €54,360 ($62,000).
CMON FOKI