Pope Leo XIV leads the Catholic Church from Vatican City where a secret tennis court awaits

Rome, when in Rome, go to the corner of Via Leone IV and the Viale Vaticano and turn about 50 meters past the last to the west, to where the line for access to the Vatican Museum starts to build.

Crane your neck to the top of the 39-foot high Vatican city wall, and there it is one of the few things next to trees and buildings that peek above the fortifications to be visible from street level.

A high, salved fence fights above the wall and extends a few meters wide. It would not scare anyone who had just overcome 12 meters of vertical brickwork, but it is not there to protect the pope, the cardinals, the Swiss guard and the Vatican staff. It is for the benefit of the people who walk down: to stop a bad shaft, an over-enthusiastic lob or a pointed smash that sends a tennis ball to the earth and sends the heads of passing pedestrians.

That fence surrounds the Campo Centrale of the Catholic Church: the Vatican City Tennis Court now under the rule of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, or rather Pope Leo XIV. After white smoke was out of the chimney on 8 May on top of the Sixtine Chapel, the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church on the stadium on Romes Foro Italico was blasted, where the crowd of the Italian open the tennis attention to the Italian open to cheer.

Then the questions rolled in.

Can Pope Leo XIV unite the progressive and conservative wings of the church and its 1.3 billion souls? Can the first pope from the United States manage the luggage that is accompanied by origin of the western super power?

And will this man need tickets for the Italian open final next weekend, just shy from two miles north of his new domain?

To the extent that he had a lot of a reputation outside of those who know in the Vatican and his coterie of old friends in Chicago and at Villanova University, Penn., Pope Leo XIV had already told the world that tennis is his sport.

I consider myself the amateur tennis player, the future Pope Leo said in an interview with the website of the Augustine Order in 2023When his predecessor, Pope Francis, gave him his red cardinals hat on his arrival in Rome. (No, not the St. Louis Cardinals. When it comes to baseball, Pope Leo is a fan of Chicago White Sox, which means that moderation and perseverance are in adversity in his wheelhouse.)

Since leaving Peru (where he has worked for the past nine years), I have had few occasions to practice, so I look forward to going back on the field, he said.

In the beginning he seemed to have said that he was a fan of Carlos Alcaraz, who perhaps disrupted the locals of his new house, given Jannik Sinners who stood as Italis -Sporty Pontiff. They don't have to worry: the claim was fake.

The new pope appeared on screens on the Italian open while spending the crowd in Vatican City. (Alfredo Falcone / La Presse via Imagn Images)

Unknown to some old Vatican viewers, pious Catholics and even several of the higher UPS at Italys Tennis Federation, the FITP, has long shown some satellite images, a beautiful red court, stopped in the northern corner of the Vatican City.

A service provider outside the museum in the morning of 8 May said that most people don't know because it is not easy to find. People know that it is there, about the road of the building around the Cortile Ottagono Courtyard, or they don't do that. The gardens and the area around the tennis court have been closed to the public since 28 April for the conclave to choose a new pope. Having a hit was not high on the priority list of the cardinals.

A tennis court may not be high in the Vatican city of Apocrypha, but what information did it preserve a portrait of what was once a lively tennis scene, in which cardinals competed in a tournament that also included members of the Swiss guard and eventually opened for Vatican employees and their children.

On 9 May a spokesperson for the Swiss guard, CPL. Cinotti Elih wrote that as far as he knew, none of the guards are now playing tennis, which is both good and bad news for Pope Leo. It could create a simpler path to victory in every tournament that he could organize, although it might be a bit harder to find a quality young partner to go with him in a last-minute hit.

Any layman confronted with the pope on the field would face several moral dilemmas. Is it cool to get a winner past him when he comes to the net? Tagging the leader of the holy chair during a net duel also sounds like a one -way ticket for excommunication.

Messages containing questions about the tennis court sent to the communication agency of the Holy chair were not returned.

The golden age of Vatican Tennis was in the late 1970s, after the court was renovated. Even the cardinals were entangled in that first tennis tree of the modern era, according to Archive research of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

A tournament of friendship started in 1978. Giovanni Battista Re, who would become vice-dean of the College of Cardinals, took the title. At that time he was a priest who worked for the State Secretariat, who performs the political and diplomatic functions for the Pope.

In the final, Battista again stood on Roberto Tucci, an Italian Jesuit and the director -general of Vatican radio. He also became a cardinal. There was a competition in third place. Peter Hasler, a Swiss guard, defeated Faustino Sainz Munoz from Spain, who became an archbishop.

Priestly tennis – They stopped winning when they opened the tournament for the employees of the Holy Sees Property Administration, and then children of employees a bad idea for older boys who are interested in winning championships. In the end, participation declined and the tournament ended before employees of the Vatican Museum started it again in 2008.

Pope Leo does not have to work hard to find support with the sport current pros if he wants to make tennis a larger part of his reign.

Iga Witek said in a press conference that she would like to spend some time on St. Peters Square waiting for the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel if she could work it out in her schedule. Emma Raducanu predicted a long conclave on Wednesday evening, a phone call that was not outdated well, Paus Leo chosen was chosen after just over 24 hours.

Madison Keys said on Thursday evening that her good friend Desirae Krawczyk, a double player, was hit to St. Peters Square to participate in the excitement.

Everything has made this opening week that the Italian Open will never forget, especially the announcement of his elections that appear on stadium screens during competitions on Thursday evening.

It turns out that it was appropriate. All those years later, Robert Francis Prevost finally got into pro tennis.

(Top photos: Andrej Isakovic, Alberto Pizzoli / Getty images; Illustration: Will Tullos / The athletics; Graphic: John Bradford / Athletics))