Aryna Sabalenka, Like Jannik Sinner: The Gift You Don’t Expect

There was a special guest in the stands at San Siro for the Milan vs. Lecce match. Aryna Sabalenka, one of the top players in world tennis and fresh off the US Open final, was also spotted in the stands at the Milan stadium. The Belarusian tennis player, a former No. 1 in the WTA rankings, watched the Rossoneri warm up alongside Gerry Cardinale, owner of Milan.

And right before the match, she received a special gift. Cardinale presented Sabalenka with a Milan jersey personalized with her name and the number 1—a tribute reflecting the player’s achievement of reaching the top of the world rankings. However, this isn’t the first time Milan has bestowed this kind of honor on a tennis superstar. In fact, Jannik Sinner had already received the same gift. The men’s No. 1 tennis player had also been given a Rossoneri jersey personalized with his name and the number 1, underscoring the increasingly close bond between the world of sports and the Milan club.

Milan returned to winning ways in Serie A after a night to forget in the Europa League, and one of the keys to their success against Lecce was Ruben Amorim’s decision to rely once again on the team’s star players. Among them were Christian Pulisic and Adrien Rabiot, both of whom scored after starting the match, as well as Luka Modric, who also started. And it was precisely the Croatian star that the Rossoneri coach focused on in his post-match comments.

“Modric is a player who needs to get the ball often to perform at his best. For this reason, he may struggle a bit more in some games, especially when we need to play more on the counterattack. He’s more comfortable when the defensive line is lower, but I still believe he’s ready to play any kind of game,” Amorim clarified in a postgame interview with ‘DAZN’.

“When you coach big teams like Milan, you have to listen to the players before making any kind of decision, and that’s what I did,” Amorim explained. “Then, finding a team identity is always complicated; we still have a lot of work to do, but we’re learning and improving. Compared to our last few games, we played with a more relaxed mindset. We dropped two points against both Juventus and Lazio, but we’re doing well and probably deserved more.”