Top 25 Female Athletes to Watch in 2027

Every year-end “athletes to watch” list runs the risk of just repeating whoever already won the most trophies. This one tries to do something slightly different — a mix of established dominance, athletes on a genuine upward trajectory, and a couple of names who could have a defining year if the timing breaks right heading into 2027. Women’s sports has changed shape faster in the last few years than in the previous two decades combined, and the twenty-five names below are a reasonable cross-section of exactly how that shift is playing out across six very different sports.

How Female Athletes to Watch 2027 List Was Put Together

No single stat decided who made this list. Some names here are already the best in their sport and simply show no signs of slowing down. Others are earlier in their careers, but on a trajectory that suggests 2027 could be the year everything clicks into a genuinely defining season. A few are included as much for their cultural impact — growing a sport’s audience, changing how it gets talked about — as for pure competitive results, because that kind of influence tends to compound just as much as trophies do.

Golf

Jeeno Thitikul

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Jeeno Thitikul turned pro when she was still a teenager. Since then, each season has backed up the early talk. She won a pro event at 14, long before many future tour players even reach the junior national scene. Her style leans on careful, repeatable golf more than raw force. That approach has kept paying off, with steady runs near the top of the Rolex World Rankings as she heads into 2027.

Minjee Lee

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Minjee Lee is the kind of player who often avoids missing a cut. In a sport where that is not easy, her calm reliability adds up. Year after year, it keeps her close when majors come around. Her earnings sit among the highest for any active LPGA player. The base of her results comes from limiting mistakes, not from one lucky surge. You tend to expect her name near the top of the board by Sunday.

Lilia Vu

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Lilia Vu already has a major title on her record. She also looks like she is still growing, not like someone who has reached her high point. Her ball striking ranks her among the tour’s more rounded players. More importantly, her progress from one season to the next has kept moving forward. It reads like the first big step, not a stopping point. For 2027, there is not much sign of a slowdown.

Rose Zhang

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Rose Zhang turned professional with amateur-era hype that would have crushed a lot of young players, and she’s mostly backed it up since, winning in her professional debut and continuing to add wins at a pace matching the expectations that followed her out of college golf. Her transition from can’t-miss prospect to genuine tour winner has been smoother than most comparable career arcs in recent memory.

Charley Hull

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Charley Hull has natural skill with the ball. Even players who do not want to say it often point to her swing. She became a professional as a teenager and has spent more than ten years near the top of the women’s game. Still, the standout major win that many expect has not arrived yet. The swing is there, the form is there, and the path is there for her to make that leap in 2027.

Football

Ada Hegerberg

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Ada Hegerberg is still among the most ruthless finishers in the women’s game. This is true even though her career has already delivered a Ballon d’Or Féminin and long stretches of top club success with one of Europe’s best sides. She also made waves when she had a long fight with the Norwegian federation. During that time she stayed away from international games. That choice still stands out as one of the clearest personal protests the sport has seen. Her return to full international duty only adds another tournament stage where she could keep adding to that legacy.

Lauren James

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Lauren James is the kind of individual talent capable of deciding matches completely on her own, the sort of skillset that makes broadcasters build entire pre-match previews around one player. She has represented both Chelsea and the England national team at a level well beyond her years, and she’s still early enough in her prime that her ceiling hasn’t fully revealed itself yet.

Aitana Bonmatí

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Aitana Bonmatí now looks like the clearest choice for a top midfielder right now. She plays with close control on the ball, but she also works hard for the team. Because of that, she can steer games from deeper positions. She does not depend only on showy moments. Winning the Ballon d’Or more than once has added weight to her claim. Her record keeps building too. Many people now talk about her when the best player of her age comes up.

Alexia Putellas

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Alexia Putellas has already collected the sport’s main individual award several times. What matters most is the steadiness behind it. It is not only a few peak months. It is the repeat level she brings year after year. After a serious knee injury, she came back and looked like herself at the top level. That return helped lock in her status as one of the most well-rounded players of her time.

Chloe Kelly

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Chloe Kelly took one unforgettable moment from a major tournament and turned it into momentum. Since then, her games have backed up that breakthrough. She fits the profile of a player coaches like to have. She can change a match from the bench, or she can start. When games tighten up, she tends to deliver key moments.

Athletics

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

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Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone keeps shaving time off her own 400m hurdles world record. It is starting to look routine, not shocking. She made the Olympic team when she was just sixteen and still in high school. Since then, she has pushed a timeline forward that used to move slowly, with big changes coming only after long stretches of work. In her event, she has been able to lift the bar at a pace that very few athletes match.

Faith Kipyegon

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Faith Kipyegon is the runner the 1500m field has to account for each time they line up. That role did not arrive by accident. It was built from years of top-level racing, and she has added multiple Olympic gold medals. After having a child, she returned and kept winning global titles. That comeback made her story even stronger, but her record was already near the top of middle-distance history.

Sha’Carri Richardson

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Sha’Carri Richardson brings fast racing and also a clear public personality. That mix has made her stand out beyond track fans. Her style is bold, and she speaks her mind in interviews. Those traits have helped sprint success reach a wider audience in a way that many athletes, even when they perform well, do not get. That combination of results and reach keeps her relevant even in years without a global championship on the calendar.

Julien Alfred

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Julien Alfred is part of the generation with a genuine shot at closing in on some of the sport’s oldest and most untouchable sprinting records. Her rise has been rapid enough that ruling out a historic performance in the next couple of seasons would be premature, and she’s already delivered breakthrough championship results well ahead of the typical development timeline for elite sprinters.

Alysha Newman

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Alysha Newman has stayed near the top in an event that values clean technique and steady care. It is not just about one good moment. Her results have kept her in the fight for medals across several big championship runs. Off the track, her straight talk and visible personality have also helped bring more attention to an event that usually does not get much mainstream attention.

Maria Roberta Gherca

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Maria Roberta Gherca has kept showing up in pole vault fields that keep getting tougher year after year. When the best athletes pack the top positions, it often helps people jump to new levels. Her regular results in big meets point to the same thing. It feels like she is close to a bigger breakthrough.

Tennis

Aryna Sabalenka

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Aryna Sabalenka plays with a lot of force. She can close out points in ways that many others struggle to match. On top of that, her timing and steadiness have improved, especially when the match gets tense. She stays calm in close moments, and that is why she keeps landing in the middle of major title fights. For years, she has held a spot near the top of the world rankings.

Coco Gauff

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Coco Gauff has already won a Grand Slam. That matters even more because she is still relatively early in her career compared with many players sitting near the top. Moments like this often come before a larger rise later. She turned pro as a teenager with heavy attention around her. So far, she has delivered on that promise. Her future level still looks higher than what she shows right now.

Cricket

Shafali Verma

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Shafali Verma is still just entering her prime years after becoming India’s youngest-ever T20I player at fifteen. The WPL has given her the repetition international cricket alone couldn’t, dozens of high-pressure innings a year instead of a handful at ICC events, and the technical rough edges from her early career keep smoothing out season by season.

Smriti Mandhana

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Smriti Mandhana has been one of the main faces in the WPL since the start. In the first auction, she went for the highest price in that opening group. Since then, she has been dependable at the top of the batting order. That has made her one of the safest bets in Indian women’s cricket. She heads into the next season with that same reputation.

Other Sports

Caitlin Clark (Basketball)

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Caitlin Clark arrived in the WNBA with a college fanbase that transferred almost intact, having already become the all-time leading scorer in NCAA history for both men’s and women’s basketball. Her impact on the league’s broader viewership numbers shows no sign of fading as she settles further into the professional game.

Olivia Dunne (Gymnastics)

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Olivia Dunne is still one of the most visible crossover figures from college sports in the name-image-likeness era. She took a gymnastics background and built a strong personal brand from it. She also has one of the largest follower bases among college athletes across any sport, and across both men and women.

Eileen Gu (Freestyle Skiing)

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Eileen Gu is a genuine global crossover star heading toward her next Winter Games cycle, with a following that spans multiple countries in a way winter sports athletes rarely achieve. Freestyle skiing seldom produces mainstream crossover stars; Gu has become the clear exception.

Simone Biles (Gymnastics)

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Simone Biles keeps pushing the limits of gymnastics long after most top athletes have stepped away. Her mix of staying power and high difficulty is still hard to compare with anything from the past. More than a few moves she performs are written into the sport’s official code of points under her name. That kind of credit is uncommon across any time period.

Jutta Leerdam (Speed Skating)

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Jutta Leerdam is a force in speed skating and she also has a strong public profile. That overlap does not happen often in this sport. It helps more people notice speed skating between the Winter Olympic buzz. On the ice, her level has held up as her visibility outside the rink has grown.

Katie Ledecky (Swimming)

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Katie Ledecky stands out as a top distance swimmer in any era. Her record sheet is filled with long runs of standout performances. It has not looked like a short peak that fades. Across several Olympic cycles, she has kept showing up at a high level. Her world records in middle- and long-distance freestyle events have lasted well compared with many other times in the sport.

Sunisa Lee (Gymnastics)

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Sunisa Lee won the Olympic all-around title and she is still collecting medals on the world stage. In gymnastics, the gap between first place and missing the podium can be tiny. Often it comes down to a small scoring swing. On the uneven bars, her control and accuracy remain elite.

Ilona Maher (Rugby)

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Ilona Maher helped make rugby sevens more widely watched online. She did this without letting results drop. Her story shows how a smaller Olympic sport can draw bigger attention when the athlete has real credibility. Her broad appeal has boosted how visible U.S. rugby is more than years of wins and calm work alone.

Twenty-five names, six sports, and one common thread: none of them are coasting on reputation alone. Every athlete on this list is still adding to their case heading into 2027, which is really the only qualification that matters for a watch list like this one. Some will be chasing their first major title, others will be defending ground at the very top of their sport, and a few could end up having the kind of breakthrough year that gets this exact list rewritten completely by the time 2028 rolls around.

What ties all six sports together on this list isn’t just talent — it’s timing. Golf, football, athletics, tennis, cricket, and this year’s crop of Olympic and Olympic-adjacent sports are all in the middle of genuine growth periods for their women’s divisions, with broadcast deals, sponsorship dollars, and general audience attention all climbing at the same time.

That’s a very different environment than the one most of the older names on this list turned professional into, and it means the athletes coming up behind them are inheriting infrastructure, prize money, and visibility their predecessors had to fight for one season at a time. Watching this specific group over the next year isn’t just about who wins what. It’s a reasonably direct read on how fast that broader shift keeps moving.

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