Jannik Sinner’s recent comments about the Six Kings Slam have not gone down well with Rennae Stubbs.
The Italian took part in a three-day exhibition event in Saudi Arabia along with Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev and Holger Rune.
The World number one began the campaign by defeating Medvedev and Djokovic, before taking on Alcaraz in the final.
Sinner went on to defeat Alcaraz to win the Six Kings Slam and claimed an astonishing $6 million, in addition to the $1.5 million participation fee.
Ahead of the Paris Masters, which Sinner has now withdrawn from, he commented on the Six Kings Slam. There was plenty of talk about the event’s prize money, which was the highest in tennis history.
Sinner claimed that the money on offer was not a motivating factor for his decision to compete, and Rennae Stubbs was not buying it.
“I love him so much because he tries to be politically correct. Listen, Jannik, I love you but dude, come on,” she said on her self-titled Rennae Stubbs podcast.
“There is no way you are adding a tournament onto your schedule – just like Carlos said, he was like of course I went for the money.
“Jannik, I know you want to be politically correct with everything because you are, you want to be the Roger Federer where you just say everything really well.
“But sometimes just go ‘yeah it was interesting, I wanted to go visit, we got paid a lot of money and that’s why I went.’ Then he gets sick and pulls out of Paris so I’m like dude, this doesn’t look good.”
Alcaraz started his Six Kings Slam campaign by defeating Rune, before beating his Spanish compatriot and Paris Olympics double partner Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals.
Despite the Spaniard winning the first set, Sinner roared back and won the final 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3.
When Alcaraz spoke about the Six Kings Slam his view was different to Sinner’s and had no issue admitting why he chose to play at the lucrative exhibition event.
“If I tell you that I went there only to have fun without thinking about the money I would be lying,” the four-time grand Slam winner said.
“Everybody works also for money. That’s life. I love tennis and I play for fun too, but that event had the biggest prize money ever. That was motivation.”