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Pope Leo XIV's recent sermon on the values of sports has brought out Jannik Sinner fans in droves. Many of them joked that the Italian's heartbreaking French Open title match defeat to Carlos Alcaraz had moved the head of the Catholic Church greatly.
Sinner had been out of action for nearly three months owing to a doping ban from WADA, following which he made a successful return to the ATP Tour by finishing as the runner-up at the Italian Open in early May. The World No. 1 then reached his fourth career Major final at the French Open a few weeks later, where he wasted three match points to lose 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 7-6(2) to Carlos Alcaraz in five hours and 29 minutes.
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Since then, Jannik Sinner has gone as far as to admit that the above loss had brought him a lot of distress. Funnily enough, the 23-year-old's fans are also likely to be just as distraught if their reaction to a recent post on X (formerly Twitter) by the new Pope is anything to go by. Earlier on Sunday (June 15), Pope Leo XIV wrote a brief statement on mastering humility after losing in sports.
A large section of Sinner fans subsequently interacted with the post by joking that the Vatican City head had possibly watched the Italian lose to Alcaraz.
"It took him a week to recover from Jannik’s lost finale, I get it," one fan wrote in a repost on X (formerly Twitter).
"Thank you but i will still k*s thinking of rg25," another claimed.
"Me using my serious work account to tweet about sinner," one more fan joked.
"Not him tweeting the text he sent to jannik sinner a week ago," another joked.
A few others, meanwhile, came up with some hilarious memes.
Jannik Sinner to defend Halle Open crown before Wimbledon
Jannik Sinner will play at this week's Halle Open, marking his first tournament since dropping the French Open final. The 23-year-old will open proceedings against Germany's Yannick Hanfmann on Tuesday (June 17). He has an overall win/loss record of 7-1 at the ATP 500 tournament, having won last year's tournament and reached the quarterfinals the year prior.
Sinner is not scheduled to play any tour-level events following his Halle participation as he looks to win the Wimbledon title for the first time in his career. The Italian entered SW19 as the top seed last year, losing in five sets to Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals.
