Armand Duplantis speaks his mind bluntly about Jannik Sinner

As the top athletes in their respective sports—pole vaulting and tennis—Armand Duplantis and Jannik Sinner have been friends for a long time, and it’s not uncommon for them to speak about each other—always in enthusiastic terms—even from a distance. This time, it was the Swedish record-holder who sang the praises of the South Tyrolean, on the sidelines of an event in Florence where he was among the special guests.

“Sinner and I both live in Monaco,” explained Duplantis. “It’s a very small place, and we often run into each other when he’s in town. Jannik is a wonderful guy—down-to-earth and approachable. Right now, we’re all rooting for him at Wimbledon: he truly deserves all the success he’s achieving in his career.”

The friendship between Sinner and Duplantis was also evident in mid-June when the tennis champion attended “Mondo’s” wedding to Swedish influencer Desiré Inglander, a ceremony held in Antibes, on the French Riviera, which was also attended by Jannik’s partner, Danish model Laila Hasanovic.

Just like Sinner, Duplantis is also coming off an unexpected slump: on June 7, right in front of his home crowd at the Diamond League meet in Stockholm, “Mondo” failed three attempts between 6.00 and 6.05, well short of the 6.31 he set in Uppsala in March. On that occasion, Duplantis suffered his first-ever defeat after three years of consistently finishing in first place.