Tennis News: Aryna Sabalenka walks back and Jannik Sinner's odd celebration
- Sabalenka walks it back
- Sinner's winning tradition
By Lee Vowell
Recently, Aryna Sabalenka answered a question about watching tennis, which she says she does not do a lot of, and she said when she does watch she prefers to check in on men's matches instead of women's. This clearly ruffled some feathers because men's matches seemingly tend to get more general attention than women's matches.
The fact is, though, that tennis fans should probably be entertained by a well-played professional tennis match no matter which gender of player is performing. Very likely, Sabalenka's comments shocked some and offended others. This appears to be the case because this past week during the Madrid Masters, Sabalenka addressed the matter further.
To be fair, Sabalenka gave a very good reason for preferring to watch men's matches and a very logical reason. She doesn't watch women's matches as much because she plays on the WTA tour and sees her opponents on the court. She admitted that she does watch her opponents before matches but implied she does so because that is part of her job. And, in fact, it is.
Aryna Sabalenka walks back comments and Jannik Sinner wants a hamburger
During a press conference during the Madrid event, Sabalenka said, "I didn’t want to damage women’s tennis, no. Listen, I mean, we are doing our best and, great, there are lots of great matches. I don’t like to watch it just because I play against all of them and I just want to kind of like change the (television).
"I watch lots of women’s tennis before I go to the match, I watch my opponents, I watch lots of women’s tennis.
"It’s not like I don’t like it or like I try to offend what I do, you know. I just find it more fun to watch the men play because I spend a lot of time studying my opponents, so then in my free time I don’t want to see the girls I play against again."
Speaking of a men's player who has an odd, but not weird, tradition after he has a good week of playing tennis, Jannik Sinner likes to eat a hamburger. The Italian (and possibly his team as well) apparently sees eating a hamburger as a celebration. Sinner also did not just give a general answer of liking hamburgers, he named names.
During an interview with the Financial Times, Sinner said he had a good hamburger in Australia after winning the Australian Open in January. However, he truly liked one American hamburger chain. That burger place is called Firebirds. (Sinner has not won the Cincinnati Masters, either, so one might wonder if he will change his choice of restaurant if he does eventually win the event.)
Sinner said, "A hamburger. I have this thing that when we have a good week we always eat a hamburger. Honestly, the one in Australia was really good. In America, there are some good places too. In Cincinnati, Firebirds has a really good hamburger." One might wonder if Firebirds will suddenly get a boost in traffic this week.