Pope Leo XIV 'accepts' charity tennis match and jokes: 'Just don't bring Sinner'

Pope Leo XIV made a joke on Monday, the 12th, suggesting that a tennis match is good, as long as the Italian tennis player, Jannik Sinner, considered the number one in the world, does not participate.

At the end of his first meeting with journalists at the Vatican, Robert Francis Prevost was pressured by a reporter to organize a charity tennis match for the Pontifical Mission Societies, given his passion for the sport, and he replied: “Okay, fine.”

In turn, the journalist insisted: “I bring Agassi,” he said in reference to former American tennis player Andre Agassi, winner of eight Grand Slam titles.

Prevost then replied: “Just don’t bring Sinner,” playing on the double entendre that the Italian is number one in the world and his surname means “sinner” in English.

In an interview with the Chicago Catholic newspaper “Augustinian Order”, in 2023, the first American pontiff in history, Robert Francis Prevost, had already declared his love for the courts.

At the time, the then-cardinal said he considered himself a “very amateur tennis player.” “Since I left Peru, I have had few opportunities to practice, so I am looking forward to getting back on the court. Not that this new job has left me much free time for that so far,” he said.