VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV has made peace with Jannik Sinner.
The highest-ranked tennis participant visited the brand new pope on Wednesday, gave him a tennis racket and supplied to play, throughout an off day for Sinner on the Italian Open.
Leo, the primary American pope, is an avid tennis participant and fan and had stated earlier this week that he could be up for a charity match when it was advised by a journalist.
However on the time, Leo joked that “we won’t invite Sinner,” an obvious reference to the English that means of Sinner’s final title.
By Wednesday, all appeared forgotten.
“It is an honor,” Sinner stated in Italian as he and his mother and father arrived in a reception room of the Vatican’s auditorium. Holding considered one of his rackets and giving Leo one other and a ball, the three-time Grand Slam champion advised a fast volley. However the pope seemed round on the antiques and stated, “Higher not.”
Leo, a 69-year-old from Chicago, then appeared to joke about his white cassock and its appropriateness for Wimbledon, maybe a reference to the All England Membership’s all-white clothes rule.
He requested how the Italian Open was going. “Now I am within the recreation,” Sinner stated. “At the start of the event, it was a bit tough.”
Sinner has a quarterfinal match on Thursday in his first event again after a three-month ban for doping that was judged to be an unintended contamination.
He’ll subsequent face freshly-crowned Madrid champion Casper Ruud. Sinner is making an attempt to turn out to be the primary Italian man to win the Rome title since Adriano Panatta in 1976.
In the course of the viewers, Angelo Binaghi, the top of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, gave Leo an honorary federation card.
“All of us felt the eagerness that Leo XIV has for our sport and this stuffed us with delight,” Binaghi stated in an announcement. “We hope to embrace the Holy Father once more quickly, perhaps on a tennis court docket.”
The pope and Sinner posed for images in entrance of the Davis Cup trophy that Sinner helped Italy win for the second consecutive time final yr. Additionally on show within the room was the Billie Jean King Cup trophy gained by Italy in 2024, the largest ladies’s staff occasion in tennis.
Earlier within the week, after Leo’s first quip about not wanting to ask him, Sinner stated it was “a great factor for us tennis gamers” that the brand new pope likes to play the game.
Along with tennis, Leo is an avid Chicago White Sox baseball fan.
His predecessor, Pope Francis, was a lifelong fan of Buenos Aires soccer membership San Lorenzo.