Daniil Medvedev took home approximately £16,000 for every minute of his one-sided defeat to Jannik Sinner at the inaugural Six Kings Slam. Medvedev was soundly beaten in straight sets, with his Italian rival cruising through to the semi-finals where he will face Novak Djokovic.

It did not take long for Sinner to establish full control, bagelling Medvedev in the first set with a brilliant display of tennis. The Russian smashed his racket on five occasions in the second set as Sinner raced to a 6-0 6-3 victory in just 69 minutes.

Players at the Six Kings Slam will earn a huge amount of money just for taking part in the event, which is not sanctioned by the ATP and carries no ranking points.

The Russian will receive £1.6m just for turning up and playing in Riyadh (Image: GETTY)

Each of the six participants will be paid an appearance fee of £1.15million simply for turning up. Medvedev’s payment works out at £16,000 per minute, given the speedy nature of his defeat to Sinner in the quarter-finals.

Meanwhile, the winner of the Six Kings Slam will receive a whopping £4.8m, which is considerably more than the prize money offered at any of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

Sinner remains in with a chance of taking home the top prize ahead of his semi-final meeting with Djokovic. He managed to beat the Serb in the final of last weekend’s Shanghai Masters and will be looking to execute a repeat performance on Thursday.

Speaking after his win over Medvedev, Sinner said: “It was a very good performance, considering I arrived just a couple of days ago. I had only one practice session so I was just looking forward to coming here. It’s a very special place.

“It’s something very, very new. I worked very hard in my very young career to be in this position. This is all work off of many years of work. I felt like that at the end of last year I was having a great run, winning the Davis Cup.

“It was very nice and winning the first Grand Slam of the year in Australia was awesome. That gave me the confidence to produce some, some great tennis throughout the whole year, but also always trying to keep improving and evolve.”

Looking ahead to his next match against Djokovic, Sinner added: “Hopefully it’s going to be a great match. This is all that we are hoping for now. It doesn’t really matter, the winner.”