Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 11:52 p.m.
It happens in all areas of work. There are couples in many professions and companies and also in the world of sports, inbred like many others. Tennis is not on the sidelines. There were and will continue to be pairs of tennis players because it is a discipline that at a professional level involves many hours of dedication and many weeks of the year traveling around the world to participate in tournaments. From this perspective, it seems complicated for a racket talent to develop a normal life, with a stable environment of friends.
The question is obvious. And how do tennis players of different sexes know each other if they compete on different professional circuits? The answer is simple. As will happen these days in Malaga, the tennis players share a calendar for more than one week of the course. Thus, in 2024, the capital of the Costa del Sol is the sixteenth venue, the last, in which tournaments have coincided for at least ten days, after Sydney, Perth, Auckland, Melbourne (December and January), Doha, Dubai (February), Indian Wells, Miami (March), Madrid (April), Rome (May), Paris (June and July), London and Bastad (July), New York (September) and Beijing (October). There are also other smaller events in which tennis players of both sexes can coexist, for a week or less.
Paula Badosa and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who overcame a breakup in their relationship and are often seen together on social networks.
ON
From this perspective, it is not strange that couples are created and relationships are strengthened later. Complicity is maximum. Paula Badosa recognized this this week in an interview given to former player Álex Corretja, regarding her relationship with the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, who also went through a provisional breakup. «When you have played tennis you perceive those things. He is a person who empathizes a lot. He has been in almost all my bad moments and has been a great support for me. And we have something that is also very beautiful in a couple, which is admiring the other. Hearing those words from a great athlete like him gives me motivation. That your partner believes in you also helps,” confessed the Catalan, daughter of two models and who spent part of her childhood in New York.
Babosa and Tsitsipas, who love to pose together on social networks, now compete in ‘ranking’ (one eleventh and the other twelfth), and both have been in the ‘top ten’. Their photo together was on the cover of ‘Hello’ a few days ago. In the coming days it will be possible to see if Tsitsipas accompanies Badosa from the stands in Malaga in the matches.
Anna Kalinskaya and Jannik Sinner, who are very discreet when it comes to being seen together.
ON
Another very notable couple is the one formed by the world number one, Jannik Sinnner, and the Ukrainian Anna Kalinskaya (14th and rising in recent months). This was a couple with the controversial Nick Kyrgios, but now their relationship seems to be strengthened with the Italian, but with a lot of discretion in the media and social networks. Of course, they were seen kissing in public after winning the last US Open.
There are those who win titles on the same day in 2024. It happened to the Australian Alex de Minaur and the British Katie Boulter, he in Hertogenbosch and she in Nottingham, both on grass. Almost the same thing happened in 2023. The ‘Aussie’ with a Spanish mother, fixed in the Davis Cup in Malaga in 2022 and 2023, but is out this year, won in Acapulco and postponed the celebration party to take a plane to San Diego (California ) to see his girlfriend in another final.
Alex de Minaur and Katie Boulter, who have managed to win two different tournaments on the same day this year.
ON
There are those who have gotten married. This is the case of the extrovert Gael Monfils (55th), a tennis player profile always loved for his good humor and spectacle on the court, and the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (23rd). Both have been ‘top ten’, although she, who was third in the WTA Ranking, stopped to be a mother. Also married despite their youth are the Ukrainian Alexander Shevchenko (80th) and the Russian Anastasia Potapova (25th), who was world number one at the junior level. «I knew him since we were nine years old, but we had never spent time together and we didn’t talk much either. It’s as if all our lives we have been so close and yet so far away. Suddenly, once we started talking, we became inseparable,” confesses Shevchenko, who does not see the early age as a problem in having taken the step of joining in this bond: “We are more mature than other people at these ages, people who are not dedicated to competitive sports. Since we got married there is much calmer in our relationship, we have each other, we don’t rush, we just try to help each other to give the best of ourselves. “It’s very helpful for an athlete to find someone who can relate to what you’re doing.”
Czechs Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac show the medal they won at the Paris Olympic Games in mixed doubles.
ATP
Other notable cases are that of the Americans Madison Keys (21st) and Bjorn Fratangelo (he reached 99th); the French Ugo Humbert (14th) and Andrianjafitrimo (139th in 2022); the Canadian Denis Shapovalov, leader of his country this year in Malaga in the Davis, in the absence of Auger-Aliassime, linked to the Swedish Mirjiam Bjorklund, who was 123rd in the world in 2022 but has now declined, and the Czechs Tomas Machac (25th) and Katerina Siniakova (46th), another of those who are in the capital of Costa del Sol and nothing less than the current world number one in doubles.
There are also couples that have been broken, one of the best known being the Italian Matteo Berrettini (35th) and the Australian Ajla Tomljanovic (85th), or even mixed couples at a sporting level, such as the Serbian Olga Danilovic (53rd) and the Slovenian goalkeeper of Atlético de Madrid Jan Oblak.
CURRENT COUPLES
Jannik Sinner (1º)-Anna Kalinskaya (14ª)
Alex de Miñaur (9º)-Katie Boulter (24ª)
Stefanos Tsitsipas (11th)-Paula Badosa (12th)
Ugo Humbert (14th)-Tessah Andrianjafitrimo (293rd)
Tomas Machac (25th)-Katerina Siniakova (46th)
Gael Monfils (55º)-Elina Svitolina (23ª)
Denis Shapovalov (56º)-Mirjam Bjorklund (757º)
Alexander Shevchenko (35º)-Anastasia Potapova (80ª)
Bjorn Fratangelo (sin ‘ranking’)-Madison Keys (21st)
