Pope Leo XIV has made peace with Jannik Sinner. The top-ranked tennis player visited the new pope on Wednesday, gave him a tennis racquet and offered to play, during an off day for him at the Italian Open.
Leo, the first American pope, is an avid tennis player and fan and had said earlier this week that he would be up for a charity match when it was suggested by a journalist.
But at the time, Leo joked “we can’t invite Sinner,” an apparent reference to the English meaning of Sinner’s last name.
By Wednesday, all seemed forgotten.
“It’s an honour,” the 23-year-old Sinner said in Italian as he and his parents arrived in a reception room of the Vatican’s auditorium.
Holding one of his racquets and giving Leo another and a ball, Sinner suggested a quick volley. But the pope looked at the antiques around and said, “Better not.”
Leo, a 69-year-old from Chicago, then appeared to joke about his white cassock and its appropriateness for Wimbledon, noting the All England Club’s all-white clothing rule.
He asked how the Italian Open was going. “Now I’m in the game,” the Italian world No. 1 said. “At the beginning of the tournament, it was a bit difficult.”
Sinner has a quarter-final match on Thursday in his first tournament back after a three-month ban for doping that was judged to be an accidental contamination.
He will face freshly crowned Madrid champion Casper Ruud, as he is attempting to become the first Italian man to win the Rome title since Adriano Panatta in 1976.
During the audience, Angelo Binaghi, the head of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, gave Leo an honorary federation card.
“We all felt the passion that Leo XIV has for our sport and this filled us with pride,” Binaghi said in a statement. “We hope to embrace the Holy Father again soon, maybe on a tennis court.”
The pope and Sinner posed for photos in front of the Davis Cup trophy that Sinner helped Italy win for the second consecutive time last year.
The pope, formerly known as US Cardinal Robert Prevost, described himself in a 2023 interview published by the website of his Augustinian religious order as “quite the amateur tennis player”.
His predecessor, Pope Francis, was a lifelong fan of the Buenos Aires football club San Lorenzo.
Earlier in the week, after Leo’s first quip about not wanting to invite him, Sinner blushed as he said: “Why do you have to put me in a difficult spot? Obviously I heard that he played as a kid. I think it’s a good thing for us tennis players to have a pope who likes this sport that we’re playing.”
AP & Reuters