The conclave week in Rome and the election of the new Pope have coincided with the 1,000 Tennis Masters of the Italian capital. This is the last great tournament prior to Roland Garros and almost all the candidates compete to lift the Musketeer Cup in Paris. Among them are Jannik Sinner, the world number one, and Carlos Alcaraz. But an hour before starting the evening session in the Italic forum, the mobile phones around the central, the Pietrangeli track, were more aware of what happened in the Vatican than what happened on the secondary tracks of the tournament. The announcement of the election of Robert Francis Prevost as Leo XIV was accompanied by an ovation before one of the local idols, Fabio Fognini, appeared in the central.
And it is that the new Pontiff has confessed as “A great tennis fan”. As reported Antonio Pelayo In Antena 3, Cardinal Prevost was playing tennis in Rome before entering the residence of Santa Marta to celebrate the conclave of which he would be chosen as Francisco’s successor. Leo XIV was born in Chicago, one of the American basketball cribs. He studied at the University of Villanova, another center with an important tradition in the American basketball. But his favorite sport discovered him during the stage of more than 20 years he lived in Peru where he was archbishop of the city of Chiclayo. In the midst of his pastoral career, the fondness for the racket arose as he has confessed in some conversation. “I consider myself a great tennis fan,” he confessed after recognizing that he was increasingly having less time to practice it due to the time he had to dedicate to the archbishopric. “Since I left Peru, I had few occasions to practice tennis, so I’m looking forward to returning to the courts,”said Cardinal Prevost long before becoming the Supreme Pontiff.
In his early days in Peru, as he has pointed out since his environment, he managed to find some time to dress short, take the racket and ball. And is that the last name of the new Pope, Prevost, coincides with that of an Olympic medalist in the 1900 Paris games corresponding to the second Olympiad. The French Yvonne Prevost was one of the first female referents in the history of tennis between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He won two silvers in those games and his father, André Prévost, was a bronze medal in the same edition.
The linking of sport with the potatoes comes from afar. And in numerous they received nicknames in some way with some sporting activity. Leo XIII was the swimmer; Pius XI, Pope Montañero; John XXIII, the Olympic Pope for welcoming athletes in the 1960 Rome games; Juan Pablo I, Pope Cyclist and Francisco, Pope Fan, for being a partner of the San Lorenzo de Almagro Argentino Club. The latter has been the one that has been most directly with one of the most global activities that exist. Francisco starred in numerous private audiences and included sport in his speeches. “The Church, precisely because sport testifies important qualities of the person, cannot ignore human data strictly linked to sports activity.”
And it is that sport has always been linked in different ways with the Pope. The visits of different teams, not only Italian, to the Vatican; There is explicit support for Paralympic sport and even events such as The Giro de Italia, which starts today, will spend in just three weeks through the Vatican premiering the sports papacy of Leo XIV. By the way, Fognini, the local idol, could not devote a victory to the new Pope.
