Vatican City – Pope Leo XIV has made a reconciliation with Janik Sinner.
The top-ranked tennis player visited the new Pope on Wednesday, giving him a tennis racket and offering to play during the holidays for the sinners at the Italian Open.
The first American pope, Leo, is an avid tennis player and fan and said he will face the charity match when proposed by a journalist earlier this week.
But at the time, Leo joked, “You cannot invite a sinner,” an obvious reference to the English meaning of a sinner’s surname.
By Wednesday it seemed everything had been forgotten.
“That’s an honor,” Thinner said in Italian. He and his parents arrived at the response room in the Vatican auditorium. The three-time Grand Slam champion, who had one of his rackets and gave Leo another ball and a ball, proposed a quick volley. But the Pope looked around the antique and said, “It’s better.”
Leo, 69, from Chicago, appeared to be joking about his white cassock and its aptitude for Wimbledon.
He asked how the Italian Open is progressing. “I’m in the game now,” Thinner said. “At the beginning of the tournament, that was a bit difficult.”
Thinner played his quarter-final match in his first tournament on Thursday after a three-month ban on doping, which was deemed an accidental contamination.
He then faces newly crowned Madrid champion Casperudo. Thinner is about to become the first Italian to win a Rome title since Adriano Panatta in 1976.
Within the audience, Angelo Binagi, head of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, gave Leo the Honorary Federation card.
“We all felt the passion that Leo XIV has in our sport and this filled us with pride,” Binagi said in a statement. “We would like to re-encompass the Holy Father again, perhaps on the tennis court.”
The Pope and the Sinner took photos in front of the Davis Cup trophy, helping Italy win the second consecutive time last year. The Billy Junking Cup Trophy, which Italy won in 2024, was also on display, as well as the Billy Junking Cup Trophy, the biggest women’s team event in tennis.
Earlier in the week, after the first QUIP that Leo didn’t want to invite him, Thinner said that it was “good for our tennis players” that the new Pope likes to play sports.
In addition to tennis, Leo is an avid Chicago White Sox baseball fan.
His predecessor, Pope Francis, was a lifelong fan of the Buenos Aires football club San Lorenzo.
